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FREE RUSSIA.

BY

WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON,

AUTHOR OF

"FREE AMERICA," "HER MAJESTY'S TOWER," &c.

JV£PV YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

I«70.

J)58

644140
2ZIO.S6

1/

PREFACE.

Svobodnaya Rossia — Free Russia — is a word on every lip
in that great country ; at once the Name and Hope of the
new empire born of the Crimean war. In past times Rus-
sia was free, even as Germany and France were free. She
fell before Asiatic hordes ; and the Tartar system lasted, in
spirit, if not in form, until the war; but since that conflict
ended, the old Russia has been born again. IThis new coun-
try— hoping to be pacific, meaning to be Free — is what I
have tried to paint.^

My journeys, just completed, carried me from the Polar
Sea to the Ural Mountains, from the mouth of the Vistula
to the Straits of Yeni Kale, including visits to the four
holy shrines of Solovetsk, Pechersk, St. George, and Troitsa.
Tl^ty object being to paint the Living People, I have much
to say about pilgrims, monks, and parish priests ; about
village justice, and patriarchal life; about beggars, tramps,
and sectaries ; about Kozaks, Kalmuks, and Kirghiz; about
workmen's artels, burgher rights, and the division of land;
about students' revolts and soldiers' grievances; in short,
about the Human Forces which underlie and shape the
external politics of our timcH

Two journeys made in previous years have helped me to
judge the reforms which are opening out the Japan-like
empire of Nicolas into the Free Russia of the reigning
prince.

February, 1870. , ^
6 St. James's Terrace. )

I ^^

CONTENTS.

CUAP. PAGE

I. — Up North 11

II.— The FitozEN Sea 16

III.— The Dvina 20

IV. — Archangel 24

- V. — Religious Life 29

VI. — Pilgrims 34

VII. — Father John 40

VIII.— The Vladika 4G

IX. — A Pilgrim-boat 51

X. — The Holy Isles 57

XI. — The Local Saints 62

XII. — A Monastic Household 68

XIIL— A Pilgrim's Day 73

"XIV. — Pray'er and Labor 78

XV. — Black Clergy 84

XVL— Sacrifice 91

XVIL— Miracles 96

j XVIIL— The Great Miracle 103

I XIX. — A Convent Spectre 110

XX. — Story of a Grand Duke 114

XXL— Dungeons 118

XXII.— Nicolas Ilyin 124

XXIIL— Adrian Pushkin 130

XXIV.— Dissent 135

XXV.— New Sects 142

XXVL— More New Sects 146

XXVIL— The Popular Church 151

- XXVIII.— Old Believers 158

XXIX. — A Family of Old Believers 161

XXX. — Cemetery of the Transfiguration 167

XXXL— RvGOSKi 173

XXXII. — Dissenting Politics 179

X Contents.

CUAV. ' TAOE

XXXIII.— Conciliation 183

-XXXI v.— Roads 187

XXXV.— A Pkasant PoKT 192

-XXXVI.— FOKEST SCENKS 197

XXXVII.— Patriarchal Life -. 202

XXXVIII. — Village Republics 208

XXXIX.— Communism 213

XL.— Towns 218

XLL— Kief 222

XLII.— Panslavonia 225

XLIIL— Exile 229

XLIV.— The Siberians 235

XLV.— St. George 241

XLVI. — Novgorod the Great 246

XLVIL— Serfage 250

XLVIIL— A Tartar Court 254

XLIX.— St. Philip 257

- L.— Serfs 262

T- LI. — Emancipation 267

LIE- Freedom 272

LIIE— Tsek and Artel 278

LIV. — Masters and Men 284

•yr LV.— The Bible 289

-ft LVL— Parish Priests 294

LVII. — A Conservative Revolution 299

LVIIE— Secret Police 306

LIX. — Provincial Rulers 312

LX. — Open Courts 318'

LXL— Islam 324

LXIE— The Volga 330

-LXIII. — Eastern Steppe 336

LXIV.— Don Kozaks 341

LXV.— Under Arms 346

LXVI. — Alexander 351

FREE RUSSIA.

CHAPTER I.

UP NOKTH.

"XTTHITE SEA!" laughs the Danish skipper, curling his
▼ T thin red lip ; " it is the color of English stout. The
bed may be white, being bleached with the bones of wrecked
and sunken men ; but the waves are never white, except when
they are ribbed into ice and fui-red with snow. A better
name is that which the sailors and seal-fishers give it — the
Frozen Sea !"

Rounding the North Cape, a weird and hoary mass of rock,
projecting far into the Arctic foam, we drive in a south-east
course, lashed by the wind and beaten by hail and rain, for
two long days, during which the sun never sets and never
rises, and in which, if there is dawn at the hour of midnight,
there rs also dusk at the time of noon.

Leaving the picturesque lines of fiord and alp behind, we
run along a dim, unbroken coast, not often to be seen through
the pall of mist, until, at the end of some fifty hours, we feel,
as it were, the land in our front; a stretch of low-lying shore
in the vague and far-off distance, trending away towards the
south, like the trail of an evening cloud. We bend in a south-
ern course, between Holy Point (Sviatoi Noss, called on our
charts, in rough salt slang, Sweet Nose) and Kanin Cape, to-
wards the Corridor ; a strait some thirty miles wide, leading
down from the Polar Ocean into that vast irregular dent in
the northern shore of Great Russia known as the Frozen Sea,

The land now lying on our right, as we run through the
Corridor, is that of the Lapps ; a country of barren do\^Tis
and deep black lakes ; over which a few trappers and fisher-

12 Free Kussia.

men roam ; subjects of the Tsar and followers of the Ortho-
dox rite ; but speaking a language of their own, not under-
stood in the Winter Palace, and following a custom of their
fathers, not yet recognized in St. Isaac's Church. Lapland is
a tangle of rocks and pools ; the rocks very big and broken,
the pools very deep and black ; with }iere and there a valley
winding through them, on the slopes of which grows a little
reindeer moss. Now and then you come upon a patch of
birch and pine. No grain will grow in these Arctic zones,
and the food of the natives is game and fish. Rye-bread,
their only luxury, must be fetched in boats from the towns
of Onega and Archangel, standing on the shores of the Frozen
Sea, and fed from the warmer provinces in the south. These
Lapps are still nomadic ; cowering through the winter months
in shanties ; sprawling through the summer months in tents.
Their shanty is a log pyramid thatched with moss to keep
out wind and sleet; their tent is of the Comanche type; a
roll of reindeer skins drawn slackly round a pole, and opened
at the top to let out smoke.

A Lapp removes his dwelling from place to place, as the
seasons come and go ; now herding game on the hill-sides,
now whipping the rivers and creeks for fish ; in the Avarm
months, roving inland in search of moss and grass; in the
frozen months, drawing nearer to the shore in search of seal
and cod. The men are equally expert with the bow, their an-
cient weapon of defense, and Avith the birding-piece, the arm
of settlers in their midst. The women, looking any thing but
lovely in their seal-skin tights and reindeer smocks, are infa-
mous for magic and second sight. Li every district of the
North, a female Lapp is feared as a witch — an enchantress —
who keeps a devil at her side, bound by the powers of dark-
ness to obey her will. She can see into the coming day. She
can bring a man ill-luck. She can- thi'ow herself out into
space, and work upon ships that are sailing past her on the sea.
Far out in the Polar brine, in Avaters where her counti-ymen
fish for cod, stands a lump of rock, Avhich the crews regard as
a Woman and her Child. »Such fantasies are common in
these Arctic seas, where the Avaves Avash in and out through
the cliffs, and rend and carve them into Avondrous shapes. A
rock on the North Cape is called the Friar ; a group of islets

Up North. 13

neai" that cape is known as the Mother and her Daughters.
Seen through the veil of Polar mist, a block of stone may take
a mysterious form ; and that lump of rock in the Polar waste,
which the cod-fishers say is like a woman with her child, has
long been known to them as the Golden Hag. She is rarely
seen ; for the clouds in summer, and the snows in winter, hide
her charms from the fishermen's eyes ; but when she deigns to
show her face in the clear bright sun, her children hail her
with a song of joy, for on seeing her face they know that their
voyage will be blessed by a plentiful harvest of skins and
fish.

Woe to the mariner tossed upon their coast !

The land on our left is the Kanin jDeninsula; part of that
region of heath and sand over which the Samoyed roams ; a
desert of ice and snow, still Avilder than the countries hunted
by the Lapp. A land without a village, without a road, with-
out a field, without a name ; for the Russians who own it have
no name for it save that of the Samoyeds' Land ; this province
of the great empire trends aAvay north and east from the walls
of Archangel and the waters of Kanin Cape to the summits of
the La-al chain and the Iron Gates of the Kara Sea, In her
clefts and ridges snow never melts; and her shore-lines,
stretching towards the sunrise upwards of two thousand miles,
are bound in icy chains for eight months in the twelve. In
June, when the winter goes away, suddenly the slopes of a
few favored valleys grow green with reindeer moss ; slight
specks of verdure in a landscape which is even then dark with
rock and gray with rime. On this green moss the reindeer
feed, and on these camels of the Polar zone the wild men of
the country live.

Samoyed means cannibal — man-eater; but whether the men
who roam over these sands and bogs deserve their evil fame
is one of the questions open to new lights. They use no fire
in cooking food ; and perhaps it is because they eat the rein-
deer raw that they have come to be accused of fondness for
human flesh. In chasing the game on which they feed, the
Samoyeds crept over the Ural Mountains from their far-off
home in the north of Asia, running it down in a tract too cold
and bare for any other race of men to dwell on. Here the
Zarayny found them, thrashed them, set them to work.

14 Free Russia.

These Zarayny, a clever and hardy people, seem connected
in type and speech with the Finns ; and they are thought to
be tlie remnant of an ancient colony of trappers. Fairer than
the Samoyeds, they live in log huts like other Russians, and
are rich in herds of reindeer, which they compel the Samoyeds
to tend like slaves. This service to the higher race is slowly
changing the savage Samoyed into a civilized man; since it
gives him a sense of property and a respect for life. A red
man kills the beast he hunts ; kills it beyond his need, in the
animal wantonness of strength. A Samoyed would do the
same ; but the Zarayny have taught him to rear and tend, as
well as to hunt and snare, his food. A savage, only one de-
gree above the Pawnee and the Ute, a Samoyed builds no
shed ; plants no field ; and owns no property in the soil. He
dwells, like the Lapp, in a tent — a roll of skins, sewn on to
each other with gut, and twisted round a shaft, left open at
the top, and furnished with skins to lie on like an Indian
lodge. No art is lavished on this roll of skin ; not so much
as the totem which a Cheyenne daubs on his prairie tent.
Yet the Sanioyed has notions of village life, and even of gov-
ernment. A collection of tents he calls a Choom ; his choom
is ruled by a medicine-man ; the official name of whom in
Russian society is a pope.

The reigning Emperor has sent some priests to live among
these tribes, just as in olden times Marfa of Novgorod sent
her popes and monks into Lapland and Karelia ; hoping to di-
vert the natives from their Pagan habits and bring them over
to the church of Christ. Some good, it may be hoped, is done
by these Christian priests ; but a Russ who knows the coun-
try and the people smiles when you ask him about their doings
in the Gulf of Obi and around the Kara Sea. One of these
missionaries whom I chanced to meet had pretty well ceased
to be a civilized man. In name, he was a pope; but he lived
and dressed like a medicine-man ; and he was grov.ung into
the likeness of a Mongol in look and gait. Folk said he had
iaken to his bosom a native witch.

Through the gateway held by these tribes we enter into
Russia — Great Russia; that country of the old Russians,
whose plains and forests the Tartar horsemen never swept.

Why enter Russia by these northern gates ? If the Great

Up North. 15

Mogul had conquered England in the seventeenth century; if
Asiatic manners had been paramount in London for two hun-
dred years ; if Britain had recovered her ancient freedom and
civil life, where would a foreign observer, anxious to see the
English as they are, begin his studies ? Would he not begin
them in Massachusetts rather than in Middlesex, even though
he should have to complete his observations on the Mersey
and the Thames ?

A student of the Free Russia born of the Crimean War,
must open his work of observation in the northern zones ;
since it is only within this region of lake and forest that he
can find a Slavonic race which has never been tainted by for-
eign influence, never been broken by foreign yoke. The zone
from Onega to Perm — a country seven times larger than
France — was colonized from Novgorod the Great, while IV ,
Novgorod was yet a free city, rich in trade, in piety, in art; [l)(/f
a rival of Frankfort and Florence ; and, like London and
Bruges, a station of the Hanseatic League. Her colonies
kept the charter of their freedom safe. They never bent to
the Tartar yoke, nor learned to walk in the German ways.
They knew no masters, and they held no serfs. " We never
had amongst us," said to me an Archangel farmer, " either a
noble or a slave." They clung, for good and evil, to their an-
cient life ; and when the Patriarch Nikon reformed the
Church in a Byzantine sense (1667), as the Tsar Godunof had
transformed the village in a Tartar sense (1601), they dis-
owned their patriarch just as they had denied their Tsar,
In spite of every force that could be brought against them by
a line of autocrats, these free colonists have not been driven
into accepting the reformed official liturgies in preference to
their ancient rites. They kept their native speech, when it
was ceasing to be spoken in the capital ; and when the time
was ripe, they sent out into the world a boy of genius, peasant-
born and reared (the poet, Michael Lomonosof), to impose
that popular language on the college, on the senate, on the
court.

16 I'jJEE EUSSIA.

CHAPTER II.

THE FEOZEN SEA.

At Cape Intsi we pass from the narrow straits dividing the
Lapp country from the Samoyed country into this northern
gulf.

About twice the size of Lake Superior in the United States,
tliis Frozen Sea has something of the shape of Como; one
narrow northern bay, extending to the town of Kandalax, in
Russian Lapland ; and two southern bays, divided from each
other by a broad sandy peninsula, the home of a few villagers
employed in snaring cod and hunting seal. These southern
bays are known, from the rivers which fall into them, as Onega
Bay and Dvina Bay. At the mouths of these rivers stand
the two trading ports of Onega and Archangel.

The open part of this inland gulf is deep — from sixty to
eighty fathoms ; and in one jilace, off the entrance into Kan-
dalax Bay, the line goes down no less than a hundred and
sixty fathoms. Yet the shore is neither steep nor high. The
gulf of Onega is rich in rocks and islets ; many of them only
banks of sand and mud, washed out into the sea from the up-
lands of Kargopol ; but in the wide entrance of Onega Bay,
between Orlof Point and the town of Kem, stands out a nota-
ble group of islets — Solovetsk, Anzersk, Moksalma, Zaet and
others ; islets which play a singular part in the history of
Russia, and connect themselves with curious legends of the
Imperial court.

In Solovetsk, the largest of this group of islets, stands the
famous convent of that name ; the house of Saints Savatie
and Zosima ; the refuge of St. Philip ; the shrine to which
emperors and peasants go on pilgrimage ; the haunt of that
Convent Spectre which one hears described in the cod-tisher's
boat and in the Kozak's tent ; the scene of many g!-eat events,
and of one event which Russians have agreed to sing and
paint as the most splendid miracle of these latter days.

The Fkozex Sea. 17

OfE the Dvina bar stands the new tower and lighthouse,
where the pilots live ; a shaft some eighty feet high, not often
to be seen above the hanging drajjery of fog. A pilot comes
on board ; a man of soft and patient face, with gray-blue eyes,
and flow of brownish hair, who tells us in a bated tone — as
though he feared we might be vexed with him and beat him
— that the tide is ebbing on the bar, and we shall have to wait
for the flow. " Wait for the tide !" snaps our Danish jarl ;
"stand by, we'll make our course." The sun has just peeped
out from behind his veil ; but the clouds droop low and dark,
and every one feels that a gale is coming on. Two barks near
the bar— the " Thera " and the " Olga "—bob and reel like
tipsy men ; yet our pale Russ pilot, urged by the stronger will,
gives way with a smile ; and our speed being lowered by half,
we push on slowly towards the line of red and black signals
floating in our front.

The "Thera " and the " Olga " are soon behind us, shivering
in all their sheets, like men in the clutch of ague — left in our
Avake to a swift and terrible doom. In half an hour we pass
the line of buoys, and gain the outer port.

Like all great rivers, the Dvina has thrown up a delta of isles
and islets near her mouth, through which she pours her flood
into the sea by a dozen arms. None of these dozen arms can
now be laid down as her main entrance ; for the river is more
capricious than the sea ; so that a skipper who leaves her by
one outlet in August, may have to enter by another when he
comes back to her in June. The main passage in the old charts
flowed past the Convent of St. Nicolas ; then came the turn of
Rose Island ; afterwards the course ran past the guns of Fort
Dvina : but the storms which swept the Polar seas two siun-
mers since, destroyed that passage as an outlet for the larger
kinds of craft. The port police looked on in silence. What
were they to do ? Archangel was cut off from the sea, until
a Danish blacksmith, who had set u]) forge and hammer in
the new port, proposed that the foreign traders should hire
a steamer and find a deliverance for their ships. "If the
water goes down," he said, " it must have made a way for it-
self. Let us try to find it out." A hundred pounds Avere
lodged in the bank, a steamer Avas hired, and a channel, called
the Maimax arm, Avas found to be deep enough for ships to

2

18 Free Kussia.

pass. The Avork Avas done, the city opened to the sea ; but
then came the question of port authorities and their rules.
Xo bark liad ever left the city by this Maimax arm ; no rules
had been made for such a course of trade; and the port police
could not permit a shij) to sail unless her papers were drawn
up in the usual forms. In vain the merchants told them the
case was new, and must be governed by a rule to match.
They might as well have reasoned with a Turkish bey. Here
rode a fleet of vessels, laden with oats and deals for the Elbe,
the Maas, and the Thames ; there ran the abundant Maimax
waters to the sea ; but the printed rules of the port, uncon-
scious of the freaks of nature and of the needs of man, for-
bade this fleet to sail.

Appeal was made to Prince Gagarine, governor of Arch-
angel : but Gagarine, though he laughed at these port rules
and their forms, had no deals and grain of his CAvn on board
the ships. Gospodin Sredine, a keen-witted master of the
customs, tried to open the jjorts and free the ships by offer-
ing to put ofiicers on the new channel ; but the police were —
the police. In vain they heard that the goods might spoil,
that the money they cost was idle, and that every ruble wasted
Avould be so much loss to their town.

To my question, " How was it arranged at last ?" a skipper,
who was one of the prisoners in the port, replies, " I will tell
you in a word. We sent to Petersburg ; the minister spoke
to the Emperor; and here is what we have heard they said.
' What's all this row in Archangel about?' asks the Emperor.
' It is all about a new mouth being found in the Dviua, sir,
and ships that want to sail down it, sir, because the old chan-
nel is now shoaled up, sir.' ' In God's name,' replied the
Emperor, ' let the ships go out by any channel they can find.' "

Whether the thing was done in this sailor-like way, or by
the more likely method of official report and order, the Maimax
mouth was opened to the Avorld in spite of the port police and
their printed rules.

A Hebrew of the olden time Avould have called this sea a
Avhited sepulchre. Even men of science, to whom Avintry
storms maybe summed up in a, line of figures — so many ships
in the pack, so many corpses on the beach — can find in the rec-
ords of this frozen deep some show of an excuse for that old

The Frozen Sea. 19

Lapland suiDerstition of the Golden Hag. The yeai- before
last was a tragic time, and the memory of one dark day of
wrack and death has not yet had time to fade away.

At the end of June, a message, flashed from the English
consul at Archangel — a man to represent his country on these
shores — alarmed our board of trade by such a cry for help
as rarely reaches a public board. A hundred ships were per-
ishing in the ice. These shijjs were Swedes, Danes, Dutch,
and English ; luggers, sloops, corvettes, and smacks ; all built
of wood, and many of them English manned. Could any
thing be done to help them ? " Help is coming," flashed the
wires from Charing Cross ; and on the first day of July, two
steamers left the Thames to assist in rescuing those ships and
men fi'om the Polar ice. On the fifteenth night from home
these English boats were off Cape Gorodetsk on the Lapland
coast, and when morning dawned they were striving to cross
the shallow Archangel bar. They could not pass ; yet the
work of humanity was swiftly and safely done by the English
crews.

That fleet of all nations, English, Swedish, Dutch, and Dan-
ish, left the Dvina ports on news coming up the delta that the
pack was breaking up in the gulf ; but on reaching that Cor-
ridor through which we have just now come, they met the ice
swaying to and fro, and crashing from point to point, as the
changing wind veered round from north to south. By care-
ful steering they went on, until they reached the straits be-
tween Kanin Cape and Holy Point. The ice in their front
was now thick and high ; no passage through it could be
forced ; and their vessels reeled and groaned under the blows
which they suffered from the floating drifts. A brisk north
wind arose, and blowing three days on without a pause, drove
blocks and bergs of ice from the Polar Ocean down into the
gut, forcing the squadrons to fall back, and closing up every
means of escape into the open sea. The ships rolled to and
fro, the helmsmen trying to steer them in mid-channel, but the
currents were now too strong to stem, and the helpless craft
were driven upon the Lapland reefs, where the crews soon
saw themselves folded and imprisoned in the pack of ice.

Like shots from a fort, the crews on board the stronger
ships could hear in the grim waste around them hull after hull

20 Free Eussia.

crashing up, in that fierce embrace, like fine glass trinkets in
a strong man's hand. When a ship broke up and sank, the
crew leaped out upon the ice and made for the nearest craft,
from Avhich in a few hours more they might have to fly in
turn. One man was wrecked five times in a single day ; each
of the boats to which he clung for safety parting beneath his
feet and gurgling down into the frozen deej).

When the tale of loss Avas made up by the relieving steam-
ers, this account was sent home to the Board of Trade :

The number of ships abandoned by their crews was sixty-
four ; of this great fleet of ships, fourteen were saved and fif-
ty lost. Of the fifty ships lost in those midsummer days,
eighteen wei'e English built and manned ; and the master
mentions with a noble pride, that only one ship flying the
English flag was in a state to be recovered from the ice after
being abandoned by her crew.

It would be well for our fame if the natives had no other
tales to tell of an English squadron in the Frozen Sea.

CHAPTER III.

THE DVINA.

By the Maimax arm we steam through the delta for some
twenty miles ; past low, green banks and isles like those in
the Missouri bed ; though the loam in the Dvina is not so
rich and black as that on the American stream. Yet these
small isles are bright with grass and scrub. Beyond them, on
the main-land, lies a fringe of pines, going back into space as
far as the eye can j^ierce. ,

The low island lying on your right as you scrape the bar
is called St. Nicolas, after that sturdy priest, who is said to
have smitten the heretic Arius on his cheek. No one knows
where this Nicolas lived and died ; for it is clear from the
Acta, that he had no part in the Council of Nice. The Book
of Saints describes him as born in Liki and living in Mira;
whence they call him the Saint of Mirliki ; but not a line of
his writing is extant, and the virtues assigned to him are of

The Dvina. 21

opposing kinds. He is a patron of nobles and of children, of
sailors, of cadgers, and of pilgrims. Yet, in spite of his doubt-
ful birth and genius, Nicolas is a popular saint. Poor people
like him as one who is good to the poor ; a friend of beggars,
fishermen and tramps. A Russian turns to him as the hope
of starving and drowTiing men ; so that his name is often
heard, his image often seen, in these northern wilds ; more
than all else, on the banks of rivers and on the margins of the
Frozen Sea. A peasant learns with delight from his Book of
Saints (his Bible, Epos, Drama, Code, and History all in one)
that Nicolas is the most potent saint in heaven ; sitting on the
right hand of God ; and having a cohort of three hundred
angels, armed and ready to obey his nod. A mujik asked a
foreign friend to tell him who will be God when God dies ?
" My good fellow," said he, smiling, " God will never die." At
first the peasant seemed perplexed. " Never die !" and then a
light fell on him. " Yes," he retorted, slowly ; " I see it now.
You ai'e an unbeliever ; you have no religion. Look you ; I
have been better taught. God will one day die; for He is
very old ; and then St. Nicolas will get his place."

Though he is common to all Russians — adored on the Dnie-
per, on the Volkhof, on the Moskva, no less than on the Dvina
— he is worshipped with peculiar zeal in these northern zones.
Here he is the sailor's saint, the adventurer's help ; and all the
paintings of him show that his watchful eyes are bent in ea-
ger tenderness upon the swirl and passion of the Frozen Sea.
This delta might be called his province ; for not only was the
island on your right called after him, but also the ancient
channel, and the bay itself. The oldest cloister in the district
bears his name.

On passing into the Maimax arm, your eyes — long dimmed
by the sight of sombre rock, dark cloud, and sullen surf — are
chai'med by soft, green grass and scrub ; but the sight goes
vainly out, through reeds and copse, in search of some cheery
note of house and farm. One log hut you pass, and only one.
Two men are standing near a bank, in a little clearing of the
wood ; a lad is idling in a frail canoe, which the wash of your
steamer lifts and laves ; but no one lodges in the shed ; the
men and boy have come from a village some miles away.
Dropping down the river in their boat to cut down grass for

22 Free Eussia.

their cows, and gatliev up fuel foi* tlieir winter fires, tliey will
jump into their canoe at vespers, and hie them home.

On the banks of older channels the villages are thick;
slight groups of sheds and churches, with a cloister here and
there, and a scatter of windmills whirling against the sky ;
each village and mill in its appointed place, without the freak
and medley of original thought. Here nothing is done by in-
dividual force ; a pope, an elder, an imperial officer, must have
his say in every case ; and not a mouse can stir in a Rus-
sian town, except by leave of some article in a printed code.
Fort Dvina was erected on a certain neck of land in the an-
cient river-bed, and nature was expected to conform herself
forever to the order fixed by imjjerial rule.

On all these banks you note a forest of memorial crosses.
"When a sailor meets with bad weather, he goes on shore and
sets up a cross. At the foot of this symbol he kneels in prayer,
and when a fair wind rises, he leaves his offering on the lonely
coast. When the peril is sharp, the whole ship's crew will
land, cut down and carve tall trees, and set nj) a memorial
with names and dates. All round the margins of the Frozen
Sea these pious witnesses abound ; and they are most of all
numerous on the rocks and banks of the Holy Isles. Each
cross erected is the record of a storm.

Some of these memorial crosses are historic marks. One
tree, set up by Peter the Great when he escaped from the
wreck of his ship in the frozen deep, has been taken from the
spot where he planted it, and placed in the cathedral at Arch-
angel. " This cross was made by Captain Peter," says a tab-
let cut in the log by the Emperor's own knife ; and Peter
being a carver in wood and stone, the work is not without
touches of art and grace. Might not a word be urged in
favor of this custom of the sea, which leaves a picture and a
blessing on every shore ? An English mariner is apt to quit
a coast on which he has been kept a prisoner by adverse
winds with a curse in his heart and a bad name on his tongue.
Jack is a very grand fellow in his way ; but surely there is a
beauty, not less Avinning than the piety, in this habit of the
Russian tar.

Climbing up the river, you come upon fleets of rafts and
praams, on which you may observe some part of the native

The Dvina. 23

life. The rafts are floats of timber — pine logs, lashed togetli-
er with twigs of willow, capped with a tent of planks, in
which the owner sleeps, while his woodmen lie about in the
open air when they are not paddling the raft and guiding it
down the stream. These rafts come down the Dvina and its
feeders for a thousand miles. Cut in the great forests of Vo-
logda and Nijni Konets, the pines are dragged to the Avater-
side, and knitted by rude hands into these broad, floating
masses. At the towns some sturdy helpers may be hired for
nothing; many of the jjoor peasants being anxious to get
down the river on their way to the shrines of Solovetsk, For
a passage on the raft these pilgrims take a turn at the oar,
and help the owners to guide her through the shoals.

In the praams the life is a little less bleak and rough than
it is on board the rafts. In form the praam is like the toy
called a Noah's ark ; a huge hull of coarse pine logs, riveted
and clamped w^ith iron, covered by a peaked plank roof. A
big one will cost from six to seven hundred rubles (the ruble
may be reckoned for the moment as half a crown), and will
carry from six to eight hundred tons of oats and rye. A
small section of the praam is boarded off to be used as a
room. Some bits of pine are shaped into a stool, a table, and
a shelf. From the roof-beam swings an iron pot, in Avhich
the boatmen cook their food while they are out in the open
stream ; at other times — that is to say, when they are lying in
port — no fire is allowed on board, not even a pipe is lighted,
and the watermen's victuals must be cooked on shore. Four
or five logs lashed together seiwe them for a launch, by means
of which they can easily paddle to the bank.

Like the rafts, these praams take on board a great many
pilgrims from the upper country ; giving them a free passage
down, with a supply of tea and black bread as rations, in re-
turn for their labor at the paddle and the oar. Not much la-
bor is required, for the praam floats down with the stream.
Arrived at Archangel, she empties her cargo of oats into the
foreign ships (most of them bound for the Forth, the Tyne,
and the Thames), and then she is moored to the bank, cut
up, and sold. Some of her logs may be used again for build-
ing sheds, the rest is of little use, except for the kitchen and
the stove.

24: FiiEE Russia.

The new port of Archangel, called Solambola, is a scattered
handful of log houses, that would remind you of a Svviss ham-
let were it not for the cluster of green cupolas and spires, re-
minding you still more strongly of a Bulgarian town. Each
belfry bears a crescent, crowned by a cross. Along the brink
of the river runs a strand, some six or eight feet above the
level plain ; beyond this strand the fields fall off, so that the
country might be laid under water, while the actual strand
stood high and dry. The new port is a water-village ; for in
the spring-time, when the ice is melting up stream, the flood
goes over all, and people have to pass from house to magazine
in boats.

Not a grain of this strand in front of the sheds is Russ ;
the whole line of road being built of ballast brought into
the Dvina by foreign ships, and chiefly from English ports.
This ridge of pebble, marl, and shells comes nearly all from
London, Liverpool, and Leith ; the Russian trade with Eng-
land having this peculiarity, that it is wholly an export trade.
A Russian sends us every thing he has for sale ; his oats, his
flax, his deals, his mats, his furs, his tar ; he buys either noth-
ing, or next to nothing, in return. A little salt and wine, a
few saw-mills — chiefly for foreign account — are what come
back from England by way of barter with the North. The
payment is gold, the cargo ballast ; and the balance of account
between the two countries is — a strand of English marl and
shells.

CHAPTER IV.

ARCHANGEL.

Ox passing up the Dvina from the Polar Sea, your first ex-
perience shows that you are sailing from the West into the
East.

When scraping the bar, you notice that the pilot refuses to
drop his lead. " Never mind," he says, " it is deep enough ;
we shall take no harm ; unless it be the will of God." A pilot
rarely throws out his line. The regulation height of water

Archangel. 25

on the bar is so and so ; and dropping a rope into the sea will
not, he urges, increase the depth.

When climbing through the delta, you observe that every
peasant on the shore, both man and woman, Avears a sheep-
skin wrap — the garment of nomadic tribes; not worn as a
rule by any of the settled races on the earth.

In catching a first glimpse of the city, you are struck by
the forest of domes and spires; the domes all color and the
spires all gold ; a cluster of sacred buildings, you are apt to
fancy, out of all proportion to the number of people dwelling
in the town.

On feeling for the river-side, a captain finds no quay, no
dock, no landing-pier, no stair. He brings-to as he can; and
drags his boat into position with a pole, as he would have to
do in the Turkish ports of Vidin and Rustchuk. No help is
given him from the shore. Except in some ports of Pales-
tine, you will now^here find a wealthy trade conducted by
such simple means.

When driving up that strand of English marl, towards the
city of which you see the golden lights, you hear that in
Archangel, as in Aleppo, there is no hotel ; not even, as in
Aleppo, a public khan.

Full of these signs, you tui'n to your maps, and notice that
Archangel lies a little to the east of Mecca and Trebizond.

Yet these highways of the Dvina are not those of the gen-
uine East. Baksheesh is hardly known. Your pilot may
sidle up, and give your hand a squeeze (all Russians of the
lower ranks are fond of squeezing !) on your safe arrival. in
the port ; and if you fail to take his hint, as probably you
wall, he whispers meekly in your ear, as though he were tell-
ing you an important secret, that very few strangers come
into the Dvina, but those few never fail to reward with na-
chai (tea-money) the man who has brought them in from the
sea of storms. But from the port officials nothing can be
got by giving vails in the bad old way. Among the many
wise things which have been done in the present reign, is
that of reducing the number of men employed in the customs,
and of largely increasing the salaries paid to them by the
crown. No man is now underpaid for the service he has to
do, and no one in the Customs is allowed to accept a bribe.

26 Free Kussia.

Prince Obolenski, chief of this great department, is a man of
high courage as Avell as liigh principles, and under his eye the
service has been purged of those old abuses which caused it
to be branded with black and red in so many books. One
case came under my notice, in which a foreign skipper had
given to an officer in the i:)ort a dozen oranges ; not as a
bribe, but as a treat ; oranges being rarely seen in this north-
ern clime. Yet, when the fact was found out by his local
superior, the man was reduced from a high post in the serv-
ice to a low one. " If he will take an orange, he Avill take a
ruble," said his chief; and a year elapsed before the offender
Avas restored to his former grade.

The new method is not so Asiatic as the old ; but in time
it will lead the humblest officer in Russia to feel that he is a
man.

Archangel is not a port and city in the sense in which
Hamburg and Hull are ports and cities; clusters of docks
and sheds, with shojjs, and wagons, and a busy private trade.
Archangel is a camp of shanties, heaped around groups of
belfries, cupolas and domes. Imagine a vast green marsh
along the bank of a broad brown river, with mounds of clay
cropping here and there out of the peat and bog ; put build-
ings on these mounds of clay ; adorn the buildings with fres-
coes, crown them with cupolas and crosses ; fill in the space
between church and convent, convent and church, Avith piles
and planks, so as to make ground for gardens, streets, and
yards ; cut two wide lanes, from the church called Smith's
Wife to the monastery of St. Michael, three or four miles in
length ; connect these lanes and the stream by a dozen clear-
ings ; paint the walls of church and convent white, the domes
green and blue ; surround the log houses with open gardens ;
stick a geranium, a fuschia, an oleander into every window ;
leave the grass growing everywhere in street and clearing —
and you have Archangel.

Half-way from Smith's Wife's quarter to the Monastery,
stand, in picturesque groups, the sites determined by the
mounds of clay, the public buildings ; fire-tower, cathedral,
town-hall, court of justice, governor's house, museum; new
and rough, with a glow of bright new paint upon them all.
The collection in the museum is poor ; the gilt on the cathe-

Aechangel. 27

dral rich. "VYhen seen from a distance, the domes and turrets
of Archangel give it the appearance of some sacred Eastern
city rather than a place of trade.

This sea-port on the Dvina is the only port in Russia prosi-
er. Astrachan is a Tartar port ; Odessa an Italian port ;
Riga a Livonian port ; Helsingfors a Finnish port. None of
these outlets to the sea are in Russia proper, nor is the lan-
guage spoken in any of them Russ. Won by the sword,
they may be lost by the sword. As foreign conquests, they
must follow the fate of war ; and in Russia proper their loss
might not be deejjly felt; Great Russia being vast enough
for independence and rich enough for happiness, even if she
had to live without that belt of lesser Russias in which for
her pride and j^unishment she has lately been clasped and
strained. Archangel, on the other side, is her one highway
to the sea ; the outlet of her northern waters ; her old and
free communication with the world ; an outlet given to her
by God, and not to be taken away from her by man.

Such as they are, the port and city of Archangel owe
their birth to English adventure, their prosperity to English
trade.

In the last year of King Edward the Sixth, an English ship,
in pressing her prow against the sand-banks of the Frozen
Sea, hoping to light on a passage to Cathay, met with a broad
sheet of water, flowing steadily and swiftly from the south.
That ship was the " Bonaventure ;" her master was Richard
Challoner; who had parted from his chief. Sir Hugh Wil-
loughby, in a storm. The water coming down from the south
was fresh. A low green isle lay on his port, which he laid
down in his chart as Rose Island ; afterwards to be famous
as the cradle of our northern trade. Pushing up the stream
in search of a town, he came upon a small cloister, from the
monks of which he learned that he Avas not in Cathay, but in
Great Russia.

Great was a name given by old Russians, not only to the
capital of their country, but to the country itself. Their capi-
tal was Great Novgorod ; their country was Great Russia.

Sir Hugh Willoughby was driven by storms into " the har-
bor of death," in which he and his crews all perished in the
ice ; while his luckier lieutenant pushed up the Dvina to Vo-

28 . Fkee Eussia.

logda, whence he forced his "way to Moscow, and saw tlie
Grand Duke, Ivan the Fourth, In that age Russia was known
to Europe as Moscovia, from the city of Moscow ; a city
which had ravaged her old pre-eminence from Novgorod, and
made herself mistress of Great Russia.

Challoner was wrecked and drowned on his second voyage ;
but those Avho followed him built an English factory for trade
on Rose Island, near the cloister ; while the Russians, on their
side, built a fort and town on the Dvina, some thirty miles
from its mouth ; in which jDOsition they could watch the
strangers in their country, and exchange with them their wax
and skins for cotton shirts and pewter pans. The builder of
this fort and town was Ivan Vassilivitch, known to us as Ivan
the Terrible — Ivan the Fourth.

Ivan called his town the New Castle of St. Michael the
Archangel ; an unwieldy name, which his raftmen and sailors
soon cut down — as raftmen and sailors will — into the final
word. On English lips the name woitld have been St. Mi-
chael ; but a Russian shrinks from using the name of that
prince of heaven. To him Michael is not a saint, as Nicolas
and George are saints ; but a power, a virtue, and a sanctity,
before whose lance the mightiest of rebel angels fell. No
Russian speaks of this celestial warrior as a saint. He is the
archangel ; greatest of the host ; selected champion of the
living God. Convents and churches are inscribed to him by
his celestial rank ; but never by his personal name. The
great cathedral of Moscow is only known as the Archangel's
church. Michael is understood; for who but Michael could
be meant ? Ivan Vassilivitch had such a liking for this fight-
ing power, that on his death-bed he gave orders for his body
to be laid, not in that splendid pile of St. Vassili, which he
had spent so much time and money in building near the Holy
Gate, but in a chapel of the Archangel's church ; and there
the grim old tyrant lies, in a plain stone cofiin, covered Avith
a velvet pall.

Peter the Great rebuilt Archangel on a larger scale with
more enduring brick. Peter was fond of the Frozen Sea, and
twice, at least, he sailed over it to pray in the Convent of
Solovetsk ; a place which he valued, not only as a holy shrine,
but as a frontier fortress, held by his brave old Russ against

Eeligious Life. 29

the Lapps am.l Swedes. Archangel was made by Peter his
peculiar care ; and masons were fetched from Holland to erect
his lines of bastions, magazines, and quays. A castle rose
from the ground on the river bank ; an island, was reclaimed
from the river and trimmed with trees ; a summer palace
was designed and built for the Tsai*. A fleet of ships was
sent to command the Dvina mouth. In fact, Archangel was
one of the three sites — St. Petersburg and Taganrog being
the other two — on which the Emperor designed to build cities
that, unlike Novgorod and Moscow, should be at once for-
tresses and j)orts.

The city of Ivan and the city of Peter have each in turn
gone by. Not a stone of Ivan's town remains ; for his new
castle and monastery, being built of logs, were duly rotted by
rain and consumed by fire. A fort and a monastery still jDro-
tect and adorn the place ; but these have both been raised in
more recent years. Of Peter's city, though it seemed to be
solid as the earth itself, hardly a house is standing to show
the style. A heap of arches, riven by frost and blackened by
smoke, is seen on the Dvina bank; a pretty kiosk peeps out
from between the birches on Moses Isle ; and these are all !

In our western eyes Archangel may seem to be over-rich
in domes, as the delta may appear to be over-rich in crosses ;
but then, in our western eyes, the city is a magazine of oats
and tar, of planks and skins ; while in native eyes it is the
archangel's house, the port of Solovetsk, and the gate of God.

CHAPTER V.

RELIGIOUS LIFE.

A FRIEND is one day driving me from house to house in
Archangel, making calls, when we observe from time to time
a smart officer going into courtyards.

" This man appears to be dogging our steps."

" Ha !" laughs my friend ; " that fellow is an officer of po-
lice."

" "Why is he following us ?"

30 Free Eussia.

" He is not following us ; he is going his rounds ; he is
warnino; the owners of all good houses that four candles must
be lighted in each front window to-night at eight o'clock."

" Four candles ! For Avhat ?"

" The Emperor. You know it is his angel's day ; you will
see the streets all lighted — by police suggestion — at the prop-
er time."

" Surely the police have no need to interfere. The Emper-
or is popular ; and who can forget that this is St. Alexander's
Day?"

" There you are wrong ; our people hardly know the courts
at all. You see these shops are open, yon stalls are crowded,
that mill is working, as they would be on the commonest day
in all the year. A mujik cares but little for kings and
queens ; he only knows his own angel — his peculiar saint. If
you would test his reverence, ask him to make a coat, repair
a tarantass, or fetch in wood, on his angel's day. He M'ould
rather die at your feet than sully such a day with work. In
fact, a mujik is not a courtier — he is only a religious man."

My friend is i-ight in the main, though his illustration takes
me as a stranger by surprise.

The first impulse in a Russian heart is duty to God. It is
an impulse of observance and respect ; at once moral and cer-
emonial ; an impulse with an inner force and an outer form ;
present in all ranks of society, and in all situations of life ; in
an army on the march, in a crowd at a country fair, in a lec-
ture-room full of students ; showing itself in a princess danc-
ing at a ball, in a huckster writing at his desk, in a peasant
tugging at his cart, in a burglar rioting on his spoil.

This duty adorns the land with fane and altar, even as it
touches the individual man with penitential grace. Every
village must have its shrine, as every child must have his
guardian angel and baptismal cross. The towns are rich in
churches and convents, just as the citizens are rich in spiritual
gifts. I counted twenty spires in Kargopol, a city of two thou-
sand souls. Moscow is said to have four hundred and thirty
churches and chapels ; Kief, in proportion to her people, is no
less rich. All public events are celebrated by the building
of a church. In Kief, St. Andrew's Church commemorates
the visit of an apostle ; St. Mai-y's, the introduction of Chris-

Religious Life. 81

tianity. In Moscow, St. Vassili's commemorates the conquest
of Kazan; the Donskoi Convent, Fedor's victory over the
Crim Tartars ; St. Saviour's, the expulsion of Napoleon. In
Petersburg, St. Alexander's commemorates the first victory
won by Russians over Swedes ; St. Isaac's, the birth of Peter
the Great ; Our Lady of Kazan's, the triumphs of Russian
arms against the Persian, Turk, and Frank. Where we
should build a bridge, the Russians raise a house of God : so
that their political and social history is brightly written in
their sacred piles.

By night and day, from his cradle to his grave, a Russian
lives, as it were, with God ; giving up to His service an
amount of time and money which no one ever dreams of giv-
ing in the West. Like his Arabian brothei', the Slavonian is
a religious being ; and the gulf which separates such men
from the Saxon and the Gaul is broader than a reader who
has never seen an Eastern town will readily picture to his
mind.

An Oriental is a man of prayer. He seems to live for
heaven and not for earth ; and even in his commonest acts,
he pays respect to what he holds to be a celestial law. One
hand is clean, the other unclean. One cup is lawful, another
cup is unlawful. If he rises from his couch a prayer is on
his lips; if he sits down to rest a blessing is in his heart.
When he buys and when he sells, when he eats and when he
drinks, he remembers that the Holy One is nigh. If poor in
purse, he may be rich in grace ; his cabin a sanctuary, his
craft a service, his daily life an act of prayer.

Enter into a Russian shed — you find a chapel. Every
room in that shed is sanctified ; for in every room there is a
sacred image, a domestic altar, and a household god. The
inmate steps into that room with reverence; standing for a
moment at the threshold, baring his head, crossing himself,
and uttering a saintly verse. Once in the house, he feels him-
self in the Presence, and every act of his life is dedicated to
Him in whom we live and move. " Slava Bogu " — Glory to
God — is a phrase forever on his lips ; not as a phrase only,
to be uttered in a light vein, as a formal act, but witli an in-
ward bending and confession of the soul. He fasts very
much, and pays a respect beyond our measure to sacred

82 Free Eussia.

i
places and to sacred things^ He thinks day and night of his

angel ; and jiayments are made by him at church for prayers
to be addressed in his name to that guardian spirit. He
finds a divine enjoyment in the sound of cloister-bells, a fore-
taste of heaven in kneeling near the bones of saints. The
charm of his life is a profound conviction of his own unwor-
thiness in the sight of God, and no mere pride of rank ever
robs hiiu of the hope that some one higher in virtue than
himself will prove his advocate at the throne of grace. He
feels a rapture, strange to a Frank, in the cadence of a psalm,
and the taste of consecrated bread is to him a fearful joy.
Such things arc to him not only things of life and death, but
of the everlasting life and the ever-present death.

The church is with a Russian early and late. A child is
hardly considered as born into the world, until he has been
blessed by the pope and made by him a " servant of God."

As the child begins, so he goes on. The cross which he re-
ceives in baptism — which he receives in his cradle, and car-
ries to his grave — is but a sign. Religion goes with him to
his school, his play-ground, and his workshop. Every act of
his life must begin with supplication and end with thanks.
A school has a set of prayers for daily use ; with forms to be
used on commencing a term, on parting for holidays, on en-
gaging a new teacher, on opening a fresh course. It is the
same with boys who work in the mill and on the farm. Ev-
ery one has his office to recite and his fast to keep. The
fasting is severe ; and more than half the days in a Russian
year are days of fasting and humiliation. During the seven
weeks before Easter, no flesh, no fish, no milk, no eggs, no
butter, can be touched. For five or six weeks before St. Pe-
tei''s Day, and for six weeks before Christmas Day, no flesh,
no milk, no eggs, no butter, can be used. For fifteen days in
August, a fast of great severity is held in honor of the Vir-
gin's death. A man must fast on every Wednesday and Fri-
day throughout the year, eating nothing save fish. Besides
keeping these public fasts, a man should fast the whole week
before making his confession and receiving his sacrament;
abstaining from every dainty, from sugar, cigarettes, and ev-
ery thing cooked with fire.

On the eve of Epi2:»hany — the day for blessing the water —

Religious Life. 83

no one is snffered to eat or drink until the blessing has been
given, about four o'clock, when the consecrated water may be
sipped and dinner must be eaten with a joyful heart. To
fetch away the water, people carry into church their pots and
pans, their jacks and urns ; each i:»easant Avitli a taper in his
hand, which he lights at the holy fire, and afterwards burns
before his angel until it dies.

Every new house in which a man lives, every new shop
which he opens for trade, must be blessed. A man who
moves from one lodging to another must have his second
lodging purified by religious rites. Ten or twelve times a
year, the parish priest, attended by his reader and his deacon,
enters into every house in his district, sprinkles the rooms
with holy water, cleanses them witli prayer, and signs them
with the cross.

In his marriage, on his dying bed, the Church is with a
Russ even more than at his birth and baptism. Marriage,
held to be a sacrament, and poetically called a man's corona-
tion, is a long and intricate affair, consisting of many offices,
most of them perfect in symbolism as they are lovely in art.
Prayers are recited, rings exchanged, and blessings invoked ;
after which the ceremony is performed ; an actual circling of
the brows with a golden rim. " Ivan, servant of God," cries
the pope, as he puts the circlet on his brows, " is crowned
with Nadia, handmaid of God." The bride is crowned with
Ivan, servant of God.

Some people wear their bridal crowns for a week, then put
them back into the sacristy, and obtain a blessing in ex-
change. Religion touches the lowliest life with a passing or-
nament. The bride is always a queen, the groom is always a
king, on their wedding-day.

A man's angel is Avith him early and late ; a spirit with
whom he dares not trifle ; one whom he can never deceive.
He puts a picture of this angel in his bedroom, over the pil-
low on which he sleeps. A light should burn before that pic-
ture day and night. The angel has to be propitiated by
prayers, recited by a consecrated priest. His day must be
strictly kept, and no work done, except works of charity,
from dawn to dusk. A feast must be spread, the family and
kindred called under one roof, presents made to domestics,

3

3-1 Free Eussia.

and alms dispensed to the poor. On his angel's day a man
must not only go to church, but buy from the priests some
consecrated loaves, which he must give to servants, visitors,
and guests. On that day he should send for his parish
priest, who will bring his gospel and cross, and say a prayer
to the angel, for which he must be paid a fee according to
your means. A child receives his angel's name in baptism,
and this angelic name he can never change. A peasant who
was tried in the district court of Moscow on a charge of hav-
ing forged a passport and changed his name, in order to pass
for another man, replied that such a thing could not be done.
" How," he asked in wonder, " could t change my name ? I
should lose my angel. I only forged my place of birth."

So closely have religious j^assions passed into social life,
that civil rights are made to depend in no slight degree on
the performance of religious duties. Every man is supposed
to attend a weekly mass, and to confess his sins, and take a
sacrament once a year. A man who neglects these offices
forfeits his civil rights ; unless, as sometimes happens in the
best of cities, he can persuade his pope to give him a certifi-
cate of his exemplary attendance in the parish church !

CHAPTER YI.

PILGPaMS.

Next to his religious energy, the mastering passion of a
Russ is the untamable craving of his heart for a wandering
life.

All Slavonic tribes are more or less fond of roving to and
fro ; of peddling, and tramping, and seeing the world ; of liv-
ing, as it were, in tents, as the patriarchs lived; but the pro-
pensity to ramble from place to place is keener in the Russ
than it is in the Bohemian and the Serb.

A while ago the whole of these Slavonic tribes were still
nomadic ; a people of herdsmen, driving their flocks from
plain to plain, in search of grass and water ; camping either
in tents of skin, or in frames of wood not much more solid

Pilgrims. 85

than tents of skin ; carrying with them their wives and chil-
dren, their weapons of war, and their household gods. They
chased the wild game of their country, and when the wild
game failed them, they ate their flocks. Some few among
them tilled the soil, but only in a crude and fitful way — as an
Adouan tends his patch of desert, as a Pawnee trifles with
his stretch of plain ; for the Slavonic husbandman was nearly
as wild a wanderer as the driver of kiue and goats. His
fields were so vast, his kin so scattered, that the soil which he
cropped was of no more value to him than the water he cross-
ed, the air he breathed. He never dreamt of occupying his
piece of ground after it had ceased to yield him, in the un-
bought bounty of nature, his easy harvest of oats and rye.

Some trace of these wandering habits may still be found,
especially in the pilgrim bands.

These pilgrim bands are not a rabble of children and wom-
en, gay and empty folk, like those you meet when the vintage
is gathered in Sicily and the south of France ; mummers who
take to the pilgrim's staff in wantonness of heart, and end a
week of devotion by a feast in the auberge and a dance under
the plaintain leaves. At best that French or Sicilian rabble
is but a spent tradition and a decaying force. But these
Northern pilgrims are grave and sad in their doings, even as
the North is grave and sad. You never hear them laugh ;
you rarely see them smile ; their movements are sedate ; the
only radiance on their life is the light of prayer and praise.
Seeing these worshippers in many places and at many times
— before the tomb of Sergie near Moscow, and before the
manger at Bethlehem, I have everywhere found them the
same, in reverence, in humility, in steadfastness of soul. One
of these lowly Russ surprised me on the Jordan at Betha-
bara ; and only yesterday I helped his brother to cross the
Dvina on his march from Solovetsk. The first pilgrim had
visited the tombs of Palestine, from Nazareth to Marsaba ;
the second, after toiling through a thousand miles of road
and river to Solovetsk, is now on his way to the shrines at
Kief. As my horses rattled down the Dvina bluffs I saw
this humble pilgrim on his knees, his little pack laid by, and
his forehead bent upon the ground in prayer. He was wait-
ing at the ford for some one to come by — some one who

3(5 Free Russia.

could jiay the boatman, and would give him a passage on the
raft. The day had not yet dawned ; the wind came up the
river in gusts and chills ; yet the face of that lowly man was
good to see ; a soft and tender countenance, shining with an
inward light, and glad with unearthly peace. The Avorld Avas
not much with him, if one might judge from his sackcloth
garb, his broken jar, his crust of black bread ; but one could
not help thinking, as he bowed in thanks, that it might be
well for some of us who wear fine linen and dine off dainty
food to be even as that poor pilgrim Avas.

This pilgrimage to the tombs and shrines of Russian saints,
so far from being a holiday adventure, made when the year is
spent and the season of labor past, is to the pilgrim a thing
of life and death. He has degrees. A pilgrim j^erfect in his
calling will go from shrine to shrine for scA^eral years. If
God is good to him, he will strive, after making the round of
his native shrines, to reach the valley of Nazareth, and the
heights of Bethlehem ^and Zion. Some hundreds of these
Russian pilgrims annually achieve this highest effort of the
Christian life on earth; making their peace with heaven by
kissing the stones in front of the Redeemer's tomb. Of
course the poorer and weaker man can never expect to reach
this point of grace ; but his native soil is holy. Russia is a
land of saints ; and his map is dotted with sacred tombs, to
which it is better for him to toil than rest at home in his
sloth and sin.

These pilgrims go on foot, in bands of fifty or sixty per-
sons, men, women, children, each with a staff in his hand, a
water-bottle hanging from his belt ; edifying the country as
they march along, kneeling at the wayside chapel, and singing
their canticles by day and night. The children whine a plaint-
ive little song, of which the burden runs :

",Fatherkins and motherkins,
Give us bread to eat;"

and this appeal of the children is always heard, since all poor
people fancy that the knock of a pilgrim at their window may
be that of an angel, and will bring them luck.

A part — a very large jjart — of these rovers are simple
tramps, who make a trade of piety ; carrying about with them

Pilgrims. 87'

relics and rags which they vend at high rates to servant-girls
and superstitious crones.

A man who in other days would have followed his sheep
and kine, now seeks a wild sort of freedom as a pilgrim, hug-
ging himself on his immunity from tax and rent, from wife and
brat ; migrating from province to province ; a beggar, an im-
postor, and a tramp ; tickled by the greeting of young and ol<l
as he passes their door, " Whither, oh friend, is the Lord lead-
ing thee ?" Sooner or later such a man falls in with a band
of pilgrims, which he finds it his good to join. The Russian
Autolycus shngs a water-bottle at his belt, and his female
companion limps along the forest road on her wooden staff.
You meet them on every track ; you find them in the yard of
every house. They creep in at back-doors, and have an as-
sortment of articles for sale, which are often as precious in the
eyes of a mistress as in those of her maid ; a bit of rock from
Nazareth, a drop of water from Jordan, a thread from the
seamless coat, a chip of the genviine cross. These are the
bolder spirits: but thousands of such vagrants roam about
the country, telling crowds of gapers what they have seen in
some holy place, where miracles are daily performed by the
bones of saints. They show you a cross from Troitsa ; they
give you a morsel of consecrated bread from St. George.
They can describe to you the defense of Solovetsk, and tell
you of the incorruptible corj)ses of Pechersk.

These are the impostors — rank and racy impostors — yet
some of these men and women who pass you on the roads are
pious and devoted souls, wandering about the earth in search
of what they fancy is a higher good. A few may be rich ;
but riches are dust in the eyes of God ; and in seeking after
His glory they dare not trust to an arm of flesh. Equally
with his meekest brother, the rich pilgrim must take his staff,
and march on foot, joining his brethren in their devotions and
confessions, in their matins and their evening song.

Most of these pilgrim bands have to beg their crust of black
bread, their sup of sour quass, from people as poor as them-
selves in money and almost as rich in the gifts of faith. Like
the hadji going to Mecca, a pilgrim coming to Archangel, on
his way to the shrines, is a holy man, with something of the
character of a pope. The peasant, who thinks the crossing of

38 Free Eussia.

Lis door-step by the stranger brings him blessings, not only
lodges him by night, but hel^js him on the road by day. A
pilgrim is a sacred being in rustic eyes. If his elder would
let him go, he would join the band ; but if he may not wend
in person, he will go in spirit, to the shrine. A prayer shall
be said in bis name by the monks, and he will send his last
kopeck in payment for that prayer by the hand of this ragged
pilgrim, confident that the fellow would rather die than abuse
his trust.

The men who escape from Siberian mines put on the pilgrim
frock and seize the pilgrim staff. Thus robed and armed, a
man may get from Perm to Archangel with little risk, even
though his flesh may be burnt and his papers forged. Pie-
trowski has told the story of his flight, and many such tales
may be heard on the Dvina praams.

A peasant living in a village near Archangel killed his fa-
ther in a quarrel, but in such a way that he was not suspected
of the crime ; and he would never have been brought to j us-
tiee had not Vanka, a friend and neighbor, been a witness of
the deed. Now Vanka was weak and superstitious, and ev-
ery day as he passed the image of his angel in the street, he
felt an inner yearning to tell what ho had seen. The murder-
er, watching him day and night, observed that he prayed very
much, and crossed himself very often, as though he were deep-
ly troubled in his mind. On asking what ailed him, he heard
to his alarm that Vanka could neither eat nor sleep while
that terrible secret lay upon his soiil. But what could he do ?
Xothing ; absolutely nothing ? Yes ; he could thi-eaten to do
for him what he had done by accident for a better man.
" Listen to me, Vanka," he said, in a resolute tone ; " you are
a fool ; but you would not like to have a knife in your throat,
would you ?" " God take care of me !" cried Vanka. " Mind
me, then," said the murderer : " if you prate, I will have your
blood." Vanka Avas so much frightened that he went to the
police that very night and told them all he knew ; on which
his friend was arrested, brought to trial in Archangel, and
condemned to labor on the public works for life. Vanka was
the main witness, and on his evidence the judge pronounced
his sentence. Then a scene arose in court which those Avho
saw it say they shall not forget. The man in the dock was

Pilgrims. 39

bold and calm, while Yanka, his accuser, trembled from crown
to sole ; and when the sentence of perpetual exile to the mines
Avas read, the murderer turned to his friend and said, in a clear,
firm voice, " Vanka ! remember my words. To-day is yours :
I am going to Siberia; but I shall come to your house again,
and then I shall take your life. You know !" Years went
by, and the threat, forgotten by every one else,. was only re-
membered by Yanka, Avho, knowing his old fi-iend too well,
expected each passing night would be his last on earth. At
length the tragedy came in a ghastly form. Yanka was found
dead in his bed ; his throat was cut from ear to ear ; and in a
drinking-den close by lay his murderer, snoring in his cups.
He had made his escape from the mines ; he had traversed the
Avhole length of Asiatic Kussia ; he had climbed the Ural
chain, and walked through the snow and ice of Perm, travel-
ling in a pilgrim's garb, and singing the pilgrim's song, until
he came to the suburbs of Archangel, where he slipped away
from his raft, hid himself in the wood until nightfall, crept to
the familiar shed and drew his knife across Yanka's throat.

No one suspects a pilgrim. With a staff in his hand, a
sheepskin on his back, a water-bottle at his belt, and a clot
of bass tied loosely round his feet, a peasant of the Ural
Mountains quits his home, and makes no merit of trudging his
two or three thousand miles. On the river he takes an oar,
on the wayside he endures with incredible fortitude the burn-
ing sun by day, the biting frost at night. In Moscow I heard
the history of three sisters, born in that city, who have taken
up the pilgrim's staff for life. They are clever women, milli-
ners by trade, and much employed by ladies of high rank. If
they could only rest in their shop, they might live in comfort,
and end their days in peace. But the religious and nomadic
passions of their race are strong upon them. Every year they
go to Kief, Solovetsk, and Jerusalem; and the journey occu-
pies them forty-nine weeks. Every year they spend three
weeks at home, and then set out again — alone, on foot — to
seek, in winter snow and summer heat, salvation for their
souls. No force on earth, save that which drives an Arab
across the desert, and a Mormon across the prairie, is like this
force.

In the hope of seeing these pilgrim bands, of going with

40 Free Russia.

them to Solovetsk, and studying them on the spot, as also of
inquiring about the convent spectre, and solving the mj'stery
which for many years past coimected that spectre with the
Romanof family, 1 rounded the North Cajje, and my regret is
deep, when landing at Archangel, to hear that the last pilgrim
band has sailed, and that no more boats will cross the Frozen
Sea until the ice breaks up in May next year.

CHAPTER VII.

FATHER JOHN.

Stung by this news of the pilgrim-boat having sailed, and
haunting, unquietly, the Pilgrim's Court in the upper town, I
notice a good many sheepskin garbs, with wearers of the burnt
and hungry sort you meet in all seasons on the Syrian roads.
They are exceedingly devout, and even in their rags and tilth
they have a certain grace of aspect and of mien. A pious
jnirpose seems to inform their gestures and their speech.
Yon poor old man going home with his morsel of dried fish
has the air of an Ai'ab sheikh. These pilgrims, like myself,
have been detained Ijy storms ; and a hope shoots up into my
heart that as the monks must either send away all these thirsty
souls unslaked, or lodge and feed them for several mouths,
they may yet contrive to send a boat.

A very small monk, not five feet high, with girl-like hair and
rippling beard, which parts and flows out Avildly in the wind,
is standing in the gateway of the Pilgrim's Court ; and hard-
ly knowing how it might be best to put the matter in my fee-
ble Russ, I ask him in that tongue where a man should look
for the Solovetsk boat.

"English ?" inquires the girl-like monk.

" Yes, English," I reply, in some surprise ; having never
before seen a monk in Russia who could speak in any other
tongue than Russ. " The boat," he adds, " has ceased to run,
and is now at Solovetsk laid up in dock."

In dock ! This dwarf must be a wag; for such a conjunc-
tion as monks and docks in a country where you find a qxiay
like that of Solambola is, of course, a joke. " In dock !"

Father Johx. 41

" Oh yes, in dock."

" Then have you a dock in the Holy Isle ?"

"A dock — why not? The merchants of Archangel have
no docks, you say ? Well, that is true ; but merchants are
not monks. You see, the monks of Solovetsk labor -while the
merchants of Archangel trade. Slava Bogu ! A good monk
does his Avork ; no shuffling, and no waste. In London you
have docks ?"

" Yes, many : but they Avere not built by monks."

" In England you have no monks ; once you had them ; and
then they built things — eh ?"

This dwarf is certainly a wag. What, monks who work, and
docks in the Frozen Sea ! After telling me Avhere he learned
his English (which is of nautical and naughty pattern), the
manikin comforts me with news that although the pilgrim-
boat has gone back to Solovetsk (where her engines are to be
taken out, and put by in warm boxes near a stove for the win-
ter months), a provision-boat may sail for the monastery in
about a week.

" Can you tell me where to find the captain of that boat?"

" Hum !" says the dwarf, slowly, crossing himself the while,
and lipping his silent prayer, "Jam the skijiper !"

My surprise is great. This dwarf, in a monk's gown and
cap, with a woman's auburn curls, the captain of a sea-going
ship ! On a second glance at his slight figure, I notice that his
eyes are bright, that his cheek is bronze, that his teeth, though
small, are bony and well set. In spite of his serge gown and
his girl-like face, there is about the tiny monk that look of
mastery which becomes the captain of a ship.

" And can you give me a passage in your boat ?"

" You ! English, and you wish to see the holy tombs ?
Well, that is something new. ISTo men of your nation ever
sail to Solovetsk. They come over here to buy, and not to
pray. Sometimes they come to fight."

The last five words, spoken in a low key, come out from
between his teeth with a snap which is highly comic in a man
so lowly and so small. A lady living at Onega told me some
days ago that once, when she was staying for a Aveck at Solo-
vetsk Avith a Russian party, she Avas compelled to hide her
Eno-lish birth, from fear lest the monks should kill her. A

42 Free Eussia.-

woman's fancy, doubtless ; but her Avortls came back upon
my mind with a very odd sort of start as the manikin knits
his brow and Jnsses at the English fleet.

" Where is your boat, and what is she called ?"

*' She lies in the lower port, by the Pilgrim's Wharf ; her
name is the ' Vera ;' as you would say, the ' Faith.' "

"IIow do you call your captain?" I inquire of a second
monk, who is evidently a sailor also; in fact, he is the first
mate, serving on board the " Faith."

" Ivan," says the monk ; a huge fellow, with hasty eyes and
audacious front; "but we mostly call him Vanoushka, be-
cause he is little, and because we like him." Vanoushka is
one of the affectionate forms of Ivan : Little Ivan, Little John.
The skipper, then, is properly Father John.

As for the next ten days and nights we are to keep com-
pany, it may be best for me to say at once what I came to
know of the queer little skipj^er in the long gown and Avith
the woman's curls.

Father John is an infant of the soil. Born in a Lapland
village, he had before him from his cradle the hard and hope-
less life of a woodman and cod-fishei' — the two trades carried
on by all poor people in these countries, where the modes of
life are fixed by the climate and the soil. In the summer he
would cut logs and grass ; in the winter he would hunt the
sea in search of seal and cod. But the lad was smart and
lively. He washed to see the world, and hoped in some fu-
ture time to sail a boat of his own. In order to rise, he must
learn ; in order to become a skipper, he must study the art of
guiding ships at sea. Some thirty miles from the hamlet
where he lived stood Kem, an ancient town established on the
Lapland coast by colonists from Novgorod the Great, in which
town there Avas a school of navigation ; rude and simple as
became so poor a place, but better than none at all ; and to
this provincial school Father John contrived to go. That
movement was his first great step in life.

From Kem you can see a group of high and wooded islands
towards the rising sun, the shores of M'hich shine with a pe-
culiar light in the early dawn. They seem to call you, as it
were, by a spell, into some paradise of the north. Every view
is green, and every height is crowned by a church with a

Father John. 43

golden cross. These islands are the Solovetsk group ; and
once, at least, the lad went over from Kem in a boat to pray
in that holy place. The lights, the music, and the ample
cheer appealed to his fancy and his stomach ; leaving on his
mind an impression of peace and fullness never to be effaced.

He got his pass as a seaman, came over to Archangel, fell
into loose ways, and meeting with some German sailors from
the Baltic, listened to their lusty songs and merry tales, nntil
he felt a desire to leave his own country and go with them on
a voyage. Now sailors are scarce in the Russian ports ; the
Emperor Nicolas was in those days drafting his seamen into
the Black Sea fleets ; and for a man to quit Russia without a
l^ass from the police Avas a great offense. Such a pass the
lad felt sure he could never get ; and when the German ves-
sel was about to sail he crept on board her in the night, and
got away to sea without being found out by the j^ort police.

The vessel in which he escaped from bis country was the
" Hero," of Passenburg, in Hanover, plying as a rule between
German and Danish ports, but sometimes running over to the
Tyne and the Thames. Entered on the ship's books in a for-
eign name. Father John adopted the tastes of his new com-
rades ; learned to eat English beef, to drink German beer,
and to carry himself like a man of the Avorld. But the teach-
ing of his father and his pope was not lost upon him, even in
the slums of Wapping and on the quays of Rotterdam. He
began to pine for religion, as a Switzer pines for his Alp and
an Egyptian for his Nile. What could he do? The thought
of going home to Kem was a fearful dream. The lash, the
jail, the mine aAvaited him-^he thought — in his native land.

Cut off from access to a priest of his own religion, he talked
to his fellows before the mast about their faith. Some
laughed at him ; some cursed him ; but one old sailor took
him to the house of a Catholic priest. For four or five weeks
Father John received a lesson every day in the creed of
Rome ; but his mind misgave him as to Avhat he heard ; and
Avhen his vessel left the port he Avas still Avithout a church.
In the Levant, he met with creeds of all nations — Greek, Ital-
ian, Lutheran, Armenian — but he could not choose betAveen
them, and his mind Avas troubled Avith continual longings for
a better life.

44 Free Eussia.

Then he was wrecked in the Gulf of Venice, and having
nearly lost his life, he grew more and more uneasy about his
soul. A few months later he was wrecked on the coast of
Norway ; and for the second time in one year he found him-
self at the gates of death. He could not live without re-
ligion ; and the only religion to whisper peace to his soul was
that of his early and better days. But then the service of his
country is one of strict observance, and a man who can not
go to church can not exercise his faith. How was he to seek
for God in a foreign port ?

A chance of coming back to Russia threw itself in his path.
The ship in which be served — a German ship — was chartered
by an English firm for Arohangel; and as Father John was
the only Russ on board, the skipper saw that his man would
be useful in such a voyage. But the news was to John a fear-
ful joy. He longed to see his country once more, to kneel at
his native shrines, to give his mother some money he had
saved ; but he had now been twelve years absent without
leave, and he knew that for such an offense he could be sent
to Siberia, as he i:)hrased it, " like a slave." His fear over-
came his love, and he answered the skipper that he would not
go, and must quit the ship.

But the skipper understood his trade. Owing John some
sixteen pounds for pay, he told him that he had no money
where he lay, and could not settle accoimts until they arrived
in Archangel, where he would receive his freight. " Money,"
says the Russ proverb, " likes to be counted," and when Father
John thrust his hands into empty pockets, he began to think,
after all, it might be better to go home, to get his wages, and
see what would be done.

With a shaven chin and foreign name, he might have kept
his secret and got away from Archangel undiscovered by the
port police, had he not yielded the night before he should
have sailed, and gone with some Germans of the crew to a
drinking-den. Twelve years of abstinence from vodka had
caused him to forget the power of that evil spirit ; he drank
too much, he lost his senses ; and when he woke next day he
found that his mates had left him, that his ship had sailed.
What could he do ? If he spoke to the German consul, he
would be treated as a deserter from his post. If he went to

Father John. 45

the Russian police, he fancied they would knout him to death.
Not knowing what to say or how to act, he was mooniug in
the port, when lie met an old schoolfellow from Kern, one
Jacob Kollownoff (whom I afterwards came to know). Like
most of the hardy men of Kem, Jacob was prospering in the
world ; he was a skipper, with a boat of his own, in which he
made distant and daring voyages. At the moment Avhen he
met Father John he was preparing for a run to Spitzbergen
in search of cod, to be salted at sea, and carried to the mar-
kets of Cronstadt. Jacob saw no harm in a sailor drinking a
glass too much, and knowing that John was a good hand, he
gave him a place in his boat and took him out on his voyage.
The cod was caught, and Cronstadt reached ; but the return
was luckless ; and John was cast away for a third time in his
life. A wrecked and broken man, he now made up his mind
to quit the sea, and even to take his chance of what his people
might do with him at home.

Returning to Kem with the skippei*, he was seized by the
police on thj ground of his papers being out of order, and cast
into the common jail of the town, where he lay for twelve
months untried. The life in jail was not harder than his life
on deck; for the Government paid him, as a prisoner, six
ko23ecks a day ; enough to supply his wants. He was never
brought before a court. Once, if not more than once, the
elder hinted that a little money would make things straight,
and he might go his way. The sum suggested as enough
for the purpose was seventy-five rubles — nearly ten pounds
in English coin. " Tell him," said John to his brother, who
brouglit this message to the jail, " he shall not get from me
so much as one kopeck."

A Aveek later he was sent in a boat from Kem to Archangel,
under sentence, he was told, of two years' hard labor in the
fort ; but either the elder talked too big, or his message was
misread ; for on going up to the police-office in that city, the
prisoner was examined and discharged.

A dream of the summer isles and golden pinnacles came
back to him ; he had lived his Morldly life, and longed for
rest. Who can wonder that he Avished to become a monk of
Solovetsk !

To the convent liis skill in seamanshi}) was of instant use.

46 Free Eussia.

A steamer had just been bought in Glasgow for the carriage
of pilgrims to and fro ; and on her arrival in Archangel, Feofan,
Archimandrite of Solovetsk, discharged her Scottish crew and
manned her with his monks. At first these holy men felt
strange on deck ; they crossed themselves ; they sang a hymn ;
and as the pistons would not move, they begged the Scottish en-
gineer to return ; since the machine — being made by heretics —
had not grace enough to obey the voice of a holy man. They
made two or three midsummer trips across the gulf, getting
hints from the native skipjDcrs, and gradually warming to their
work. A priest was appointed captain, and monks were sent
into the kitchen and the engine-room. All went well for a
time ; Savatie and Zosima — the local saints of Solovetsk — tak-
ing care of their followers in the fashion of St. Nicolas and
St. George.

Yet Father John was a real God's gift to the convent, for
the voyage is not often to be described as a summer trip ; and
even so good a person as an Archimandrite likes to know,
when he goes down into the Frozen Sea, that his saints are
acting through a man who has sailed in the roughest waters
of the world.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VLADIKA.

" You have a letter of introduction to the Archimandrite of
Solovetsk ''''*~asks~l''ather John, as we are shaking hands under

the pilgrim's lamp. " No ! Then you must get one."

" Why ? Are you so fornial Avhen a pilgrim comes to the
holy shrine ?"

" You are not quite a pilgrim. You will need a room in
the guest-house for yourself. You may wish to have horses,
boats, and people to go about. You Avill want to see the
sacristy, the jewels, and the books. You may like to eat at
the Archimandrite's board."

" But how are these things to be done?"

" You know the Most Sacred Vladika of Archangel, per-
haps ?"

The Yladika. 47

" Well, yes, a little. One of the Vladika's closest friends
has been talking to me of that sacred personage, and has prom-
ised to present me this very day."

" Get from him a line to the Archimandrite. That will
make alFthings smooth," says Father John.

" Are they great friends ?"

" Ha ! who can tell ? You see, the Most Sacred Vladika
nsed to be master of every one in the Holy Islos ; and
now . . . . ; but then the Vladika of Archangel and the Archi-
mandrite of Solovetsk are holy men, not likely to fall out.
You'll get a line ?"

" Yes, if he will give me one ; good-bye."

" Count on a week for the voyage, and bring Avhite bread,"
adds the dwarf. " Prostete — Pardon me."

Of course, the Yladika (bishop or archbishop) is a monk ;
for every high-priest in the Orthodox Church, whether his
rank be that of vicar, archimandrite, bishop, or metropolite,
must wear the hood, and must have taken vows. The rule
that a bishop must be " the husband of one wife," is set aside
so far as regards the clergy of higher grades. A parish priest
is a married man ; must, in fact, be a married man ; and no
young deacon can obtain a church until he has first obtained
a bride. The social otSces of the Church are done by these
family men ; baptism, i^urifying, marriage, confession, burial ;
yet the higher seats in the hierarchy are all reserved (as yet)
for celibates who are under vows.

The Holy Governing Synod — highest court of the Ortho-
dox'CluircE^consists ot monks, with one lay member to as-
sTsFthem by his knowledge of the world. Xo married priest
has ever had a seat on that governing board. The metrop-
olites are monks; and not only monks, but actual rulers of
monastic houses. Isidore, metropolite ofTN ovgorod, is archi-

mandriteof the great Convent of St. George. Arseny, me-
tropolite of Kief, is archimandrite of the great Convent of
Pechersk. Innocent, metropolite of Moscow, is archiman-
drite of the great Convent of Troitsa. All the vicars of these
high-priests are monks. The case of Archangel and Solo-
vetsk is, therefore, the exception ~to~a general— rttfe St.
George, PecHersk, and 'I'roitsa, are governedHBy the nearest
prince of the Church ; and in former times this was also the

48 Feee Russia.

case with Solovetsk ; but Peter the Great, in one of his fits
of reverence, broke this old connection of the convent and the
see of Archangel ; endowing the Archimandrite of Solovetsk
with a separate standing and an independent power. Some
people think the Archbishop of Archangel nurses a grudge
against the civil power for this infringement of his ancient
rights ; and this idea was probably present in the mind of
Father John.

Acting on Father John's advice, I put on my clothes of
state — a plain dress suit ; the only attire in which you can
wait on a man of rank — and drive to my friend's abode, and
finding him ready to go with me, gallop through a gust of
freezing rain to the jialace-door.

The archbishop is at home, though it is not yet twelve
o'clock. It is said of him that he seldom goes abroad ; af-
fecting the airs of an exile and a martyr ; but doing — in a
sad, submissive way, as if the weapon were unworthy of its
work — a great deal of good ; watching over his church, ad-
monishing his clergy, both white and black, and thinking, like
a father, for the jDoor.

Leaving our wraps in an outer hall (the proper etiquette of
guests), we send in our cards by an usher, and are received at
once.

The Most Sacred Vladika, pale as a ghost, dressed in a
black gown, on which hangs a sapphire cross, and wearing his
hood of serge, rises to greet us ; and coming forward with a
sweet and vanishing smile, first blesses his penitent, and then
shakes hands with his English guest.

This Most Sacred Father Nathaniel is now an aged, shad-
owy man, with long white beard, and a failing light in his
meek blue eyes. But in his prime he is said to have been
handsome in person, eager in gait, caressing in style. In his
youth he was a village joastoi* — one of the White Clergy —
married, and a family man ; but his wife died early ; and as
a pastor in his church can not marry a second time, he fol-
lowed a fashion long ago set by his aspiring brethren — he
took the A'ows of chastity, became a monk, and began to rise.
Ilis fine face, his courtly wit, his graceful bearing, brought
him hosts of fair penitents, and these fair penitents made for
him high friends at court. He Avas appointed Vicar of St.

The Yladika. 49

Petersburg — a post not higher in actual rank than that of a
Dean of St. Paul's, but one which a popular and ambitious
man prefers to most of the Russian sees. Father Nathaniel
was an idol of the city. Fine ladies sought his advice, and
women of all classes came to confess to him their sins.
Princes fell beneath his sway; princesses adored him; and
no rank in the Church, however high, appeared to stand be-
yond his reach. But these court triumphs were his ruia»
He was such a favorite with ladies that his brethren began
to smile with malicious leer when his back was turned, and
drop their poisonous hints about the ways in which he Avalk-
ed. They said he was too fond of power ; they said he
spent more time with- his female penitents than became a
monk. It is the misery of these vicars and bishops that they
can not be married men, with wives of their own to turn the
edges of such shafts. Men's tongues kept wagging against
Nathaniel's fame ; and even those who knew him to be ear-
nest in his faith began to think it might be well for the Church
if this fascinating father could be honorably sent to some dis-
tant see.

Whither was he to go ?

While a place was being sought for him, he happened to
give deep offense in high quarters ; and as Father Alexander,
Vladika of Archangel (hero of Solovetsk), was eager to go
south and be near the court, Father Nathaniel was promoted
to that hero's place.

He left St. Petersburg amidst the tears of fair women, who
could not protect their idol against the malice of envious
monks. Taking his promotion meekly as became his robe, he
sighed to think that his day Avas come, and in the future he
would count in his church as a fallen man. Arriving in
Archangel, he shut himself u^^ in his palace near the monas-
tery of St. Michael ; a house which he found too big for his
simple wants. Soon after his coming he abandoned this pal-
ace for a smaller house ; giving up his more jjrincely pile to
the monks of St. Michael for a public school.

A spirit of sacrifice is the pre-eminent virtiie of the Kussian
Church.

The shadowy old man compels me to sit on the sofa by his
side ; talks of my voyage round the North Cape ; shows me

4

50 Free Eussia.

a copy in Tlussian of my book on the Holy Land; inquires
whether I know the Pastor Xatli in London. Fancying that
he means the Russian pope in Welbeck Street, I answer yes ;
on which we get into much confusion of tongues ; until it
flashes upon nie that he is talking of Mr, Hatherley of Wol-
verhampton, the gentleman who has gone over from the Eng-
lish to the Russian rite, and is said to have carried some
twenty souls of the Black Country Avitli him. What little
there is to tell of this Oriental Church in our Black Country
is told ; and in return for my scanty supply of facts, the Vlad-
ika is good enough to show me the pictures hanging on his
wall. These pictures are of two classes, holy and loyal ; first
the sacred images — those heads of our Saviour and of the
Virgin Mother which hang in the corners of every Russian
room, the tutelary presence, to be adored with reverence at
the dawn of day and the hour of rest; then the loyal and lo-
cal pictures — portraits of the reigning house, and of former
archbishops — which you would expect to find in such a
house ; a first Alexander, with flat and dreamy face ; a Nico-
las, with stiff and haughty figure ; a second Alexander, hung
in the plaCe of honor, and wearing a pensive and benignant
smile. More to my mind, as less familiar than these great
ones of the hour, is the fading image of a lady, thoroughly
Russ in garb and aspect — Marfa, boyarine of Novgorod and
colonizer of the North.

Nathaniel marks with kindling eyes my interest in this
grand old creature — builder alike of convents and of towns —
who sent out from Novgorod two of her sons, and hundreds
of her people, to the bleak north country, then inhabited by
pagan Lapps and Karels, worshippers of the thunder-cloud,
and children of the Golden Hag. Her stoiy is the epic of
these northern shores.

While Red and White Rose were wasting our English
counties with sword and fire, this energetic princess sent her
sons and her people down the Volkhoff, into Lake Ladoga,
whence they crept up the Swir into Lake Onega; from the
banks of which lake they marched uj^ward, through the for-
ests of birch and pine, into the frozen north. She sent them
to explore the woods, to lay down rivers and lakes, to tell the
natives of a living God. They came to Holmogory, on the
Dvina, then a poor fishing-village occupied by Karels, a tribe

A Pilgrim-Boat. 51

not higher in type thcan the Samoyeds of the present day.
They founded Suma, Soroka, and Kera. They took possession
of the Frozen Sea and its ckistering isles. In dropping down
a main arm of the river, Marfa's two sons were pitched from
their boat and drowned. Their bodies being washed on
shore and buried in the sand, she caused a cloister to be raised
on the sjDOt, which she called the Monastery of St. Xicolas,
after the patron of drowning men.

That cloister of St. Nicolas was the point first made by
Challoner when he entered the Dvina from the Frozen Sea.

" You are going over to Solovetsk ?" says the Vladika,
coming back to his sofa. " We have no authority in the
isles, although they lie within our See. It pleased the Em-
peror Peter, on his return from a stormy voyage, to raise the
Convent of Savatie to independent rank, to give it the title
of Lavra — making it the equal, in our ecclesiastical system,
witli Troitsa, Pechersk, and St. George. From that day Solo-
vetsk became a sepai-ate province of the Church, dependent on
the Holy Governing Synod and the Tsar. Still I can give you
a line to Feofan, the Archimandrite."

Slipping into an inner room for five minutes, he composes a
mandate in my favoi', in the highest Oriental style.

CHAPTER IX.

A pilgei:m-boat,

A LADY, who knows the country, puts up in a crate such
things as a pilgrim may chance to need in a monastic cell —
good tea, calf's tongue, fresh butter, cheese, roast beef, and
indispensable white bread. These dainties being piled on a
drojki, propped on pillows and covered with quilts — my hed-
ding in the convent and the boat — we rattle away to the Pil-
grim's Wharf.

Yes, there it is, an actual wharf — the only wharf in Arch-
angel along which boats can lie, and land their passengers by
a common sea-side plank !

Moored to the capstan by a rope, lies the pretty craft ; a

52 Free Russia.

gilt cross on her foremast, a saintly pennant on her main.
Four large gold letters tell her name :

B -B P A

(pronounced Verra), and meaning Faith. Father John is
standing on his bridge, giving orders in a low voice to his offi-
cers and crew, many of Avhom are monks — mate, steward, cook,
and engineer — each and all arrayed in the cowl and frock.

On the Pilgrim's Wharf, which lies in a yard cut off by
gates from the street, and paved with chips and shavings to
form a dry approach, stands a new pile of monastic buildings ;
chapels, cells, store-rooms, offices, stalls, dormitories ; in fact,
a new Pilgrim's Court. A steamer can not reach the port in
the upper town, where the original Pilgrim's Court was built ;
and the fathers, keeping pace with the times, have let their
ancient lodgings in the town, and built a new house lower
down the stream.

Crowds of men and women — pilgrims, tramps, and soldiers
— strew the wharf with a litter of baskets, tea-pots, beds, dried-
fish, felt boots, old rugs and furs, salt-girkins, black bread ;
through which the monks step softly and sadly; helping a
child to trot on board, getting a free pass for a beggar, buying
rye-loaves for a lame wretch, and otherwise aiding the poorest
of these poor creatures in their need. For, even though the
season is now far spent, nearly two hundred pilgrims are in
waiting on the Pilgrim's Wharf ; all hoping to get over to the
Holy Isles. Most of these men have money to pay their fare ;
and some among the group-s are said to be rich. A dozen of
the better sort, natives of Archangel, too busy to pass over
the sea in June, when their river was full of ships, are taking
advantage of the lull in trade, and of the extra boat. Each
man brings with him a basket of bread and fish, a box of tea,
a thick quilt, and a pair of felt leggings, to be worn over his
boots at night. These local pilgrims carry a staff ; but in
place of the leathern belt and water-bottle, they carry a teapot
and a cuj). One man wears a cowl and gown, who is not of.
the crew ; a jolly, riotous monk, going back to his convent as
a prisoner. " What has he been doing ?" " Women and
drink," says Father John. The fares are low : first-class, six
rubles (fifteen shillings) ; second-class, four rubles. Third-

A Pilgrim-Boat. 53

class, three rubles. This tariff covers the cost of going out
and coming back — a voyage of four hundred miles — with
lodgings in the guest-house, and rations at the common tables,
during a stay of five or six days, A dozen of these poor pil-
grims have no rubles in their purse, and the question rises on
the wharf, whether these paupers shall be left behind. Fa-
ther John and his fellow-skipper have a general rule; they
must refuse no man, however poor, who asks them for a pas-
sage to Solovetsk in the name of God.

A bell tolls, a plank is drawn, and we are off. As we back
from the wharf, getting clear, a hundred heads bow down, a
hundred hands sign the cross, and every soul commends itself
to God. Every time that, in dropping down the river, M'e
pass a church, the work of bowing and crossing begins afresh.
Each head uncovers ; each back is bent ; each lip is moved
by prayer. Some kneel on deck ; some kiss the planks. The
men look contrite, and the women are sedate. The crews on
fishing-craft salute us, oftentimes kneeling and bowing as we
glide past, and always crossing themselves with uncovered
heads. Some beg that we will pray for them ; and the most
worldly sailors pause in their work and hope that the Lord
will give us a prosperous Avind.

A gale is blowing from west and north. In the river it is
not much felt, excepting for the chill, which bites into your
bone. Father John, with a monk's contempt for caution,
gives the Maimax Channel a free berth, and having a boat in
hand of very light draught, drops down the ancient arm as a
shorter passage into the gulf.

Before we quit the river, our provident worshippers have
begun to brew their tea and eat their supper of girkin and
black bread.

The distribution on board is simple. Only one passenger
has paid the first-class fare. He has the whole state cabin to
himself; a room some nine feet square, with bench and mat
to sleep on ; a cabin in which he might live very well, had it
not pleased the monks to stow their winter supply of tallow
in the boxes beneath his couch. Two persons have paid the
second-class fare— a skipper and his wife, who have been sail-
ing about the world for years, have made their fortunes, and
are now going home to Kem, " Ah !" says the fair, fat wom-

54 Free Eussia.

*

an, " you English have a nice country to live in, and you get

very good tea ; but , . . ." The man is like his wife. " Pre-
fer to live in Kem? Why not? In London you have beef
and stout ; but you have no summer and no winter ; all your
seasons are the same ; never hot, never cold. If you want to
enjoy life, you should drive in a reindeer sledge over a Lap-
land i^lain, in thirty degrees of frost."

The rest of our f ellow-i^ilgrims are on deck and in the hold ;
rich and poor, lame and blind, merchant and beggar, charlatan
and saint ; a motley group, in which a painter might find mod-
els for a Cantwell, a Torquemada, a St. John. You see by
their garb, and hear in their speech, that they have come from
every province of the Empire; from the Ukraine and from
Georgia, from the Crimea and from the Ural heights, from
the Gulf of Finland and from the shores of the Yellow Sea.
Some of these men have been on foot, trudging through sum-
mer sands and winter snows, for more than a year.

The lives of many of my fellow-passengers are like an old
wife's tales.

One poor fellow, having no feet, has to be lifted on board the
boat. He is clothed in rags ; yet this poor pilgrim's face has
such a patient look that one can hardly help feeling he has
made his peace. He tells me that he lives beyond Viatka, in
the province of Perm ; that he lost his feet by frost-bite years
ago ; that he lay sick a long time ; that while he was lying
in his pain he called on Savatie to help him, promising that
saint, on his recovery, to make a pilgrimage to his shrine in
the Frozen Sea. By losing his legs he saved his life; and
then, in his poverty and rags, he set forth on his journey,
crawling on his stumps, around which he has twisted a- coarse
leather splinth, over fifteen hundred miles of broken road.

Another pilgrim, wearing a felt boot on one leg, a bass shoe
on the other, has a most abject look. He is a drunkard, sail-
ing to Solovetsk to redeem a vow. Lying tipsy on the canal
bank at Vietegra, he rolled into the water, and narrowly es-
caped being drowned. As he lay on his face, the foam oozing
slowly from his mouth, he called on his saints to save him,
promising them to do a good work in return for such help.
To keep that vow he is going to the holy shrines,

A woman is carrying her child, a fine little lad of six or

A Pilgrim-Boat. 55

seven years, to be offered to the monks and educated for the
cowl. She has passed through trouble, having lost her hus-
bandj'and her fortune, and she is bent on sacrificing the only
gift now left to her on earth. To put her son in the monas-
tery of Solovetsk is to secure him, she believes, against all
temporal and all spiritual harm. Poor creature ! It is sad
to think of her lot Avheu the sacrifice is made ; and the lonely
woman, turning back from the incense and glory of Solovetsk,
has to go once more into the world, and without her child.

An aged man, with flowing beard and priestly mien, though
he is wrapped in rags, is noticeable in the groups among Avhich
he moves. He is a vowed pilgrim ; that is to say, a pilgrim
for life, as another man would be a monk for life ; his w hole
time being spent in walking from shrine to shrine. He has
the highest rank of a pilgrim ; for he has been to Nazareth
and Bethlehem, as well as to Novgorod and Kief. This is the
third time he has come to Solovetsk ; and it is his hope, if
God should spare him for the work, to make yet another
round of the four most potent shrines, and then lay up his
dust in these holy isles.

Some of these pilgrims, even those in rags, are bringing
gifts of no small value to the convent fund. Each pilgrim
drops his offering into the box : some more, some less, accord-
ing to his means. Many bear gifts from neighbors and friends
who can not afford the time for so long and perilous a voy-
age, but who wish to walk wdth God, and lay up their portion
wdth His saints.

On reaching the river mouth w'e find a fleet of fishing-boats
in dire distress; and the two ships that we passed a week
since, bobbing and reeling on the bar like tipsy men, are com-
pletely gone. The " Thera " is a Norwegian clipper, carrying
deals ; the " Olga " a Prussian bark, carrying oats ; they are
now aground, and raked by the wash from stem to stern. We
pass these hulls in prayer ; for the gale blows dead in our
teeth; and we are only too w^ell aware that before daylight
comes again Ave shall need to be helped by all the sjnrits that
wait on mortal men.

With hood and gown wrapped up in a storm-cape, made for
such nights. Father John is standing on his bridge, directing
the course of his boat like an Eno-lish tar. His monks meet

56 Free Eussia.

the wind vritli a psalm, in the singing of which the pilgrims and
soldiers join. The passenger comes for a moment from his
cabin into the sleet and rain ; for the voices of these enthusi-
asts, pealing to the heavens through rack and roar, are like no
sounds he has ever yet heard at sea. Many of the singers lie
below in the hold; penned uj) between sacks of rye and casks
of grease ; some of them deadly sick, some gi-oaning as though
their hearts would break ; yet more than half these sufferers
follow with lifted eyes and strenuous lungs the swelling of
that beautiful monkish chant. It is their even-song, and they
could not let the sun go dowu into the surge untU that duty
to their Maker was said and sung.

Xext day there comes no dawn. A man on the bridge de-
clares that the sun is up; but no one else can see it; for a
veU. of mist droops everywhere about us, out of which comes
nothing but a roar of wind and a flood of rain.

The " Faith " is bound to arrive in the Bay of Solovetsk by
twelve o'clock; but early in the day Father John comes to
tell me (apart) that he shall not be able to reach his port until
five o'clock ; and when five is long since past, he returns to
tell me, with a patient shrug, that we want more room, and
must change our course. The entrance to Solovetsk is through
a reef of rocks.

" Must we lie out all night ?"

'•' We must." Two hours are spent in feeling for the shore ;
Father John having no objection to use his lead. "When an-
chorage is found, we let the chain go, and swinging round,
under a lee shore, in eight fathoms of water, find ourselves ly-
ing out no more than a mile from land.

Then we drink tea ; the pilgrims sing their even-song; and,
■with a thousand crossings and bendings, we commit our souls
to heaven. Lying close in shore, under cover of a ridge of
pines, we swing and lurch at our ease ; but the storm howls
angrily in our wake ; and we know that many a poor crew, on
their frail northern barks, are struggling all night with the
powers of Hfe and death. A Dutch clipper, called the " Ena,"
runs aground ; her crew is saved, and her cargo lost. Two
Russian sloops are shattered and riven in our track ; one of
them p)arting amidships and going down in a trough of sea
with ever>' soul on board.

The Holy Isles. 57

In the early watch the wind goes down ; sunlight streaks
the north-eastern sky ; and, in the pink da^ii, we catch, in
our front, a little to the west, a glimpse of the green cupolas
and golden crosses of Solovetsk — a joy and wonder to all
eyes; not more to pilgrims, who have walked a thousand
miles to greet them, than they are to their English guest.

Saluting the holy place with prayer, and steaming by a
coast-line broken by rocks and beautified by verdure, we pass,
in a flood of soft warm sunshine, up a short inland reach, in
which seals are plashing, over which doves are darting, each
in their happy sport, and, by eight o'clock of a lovely August
morning, swing ourselves round in a secluded bay under the
convent walls.

CHAPTER X.

THE HOLY ISLES.

Chief in a group of rocks and banks lying off the Karel
const — a group not yet siuweyed, and badly laid down in charts
— Solovetsk is a small, green island, ten or twelve miles long,
by eight or nine miles wide. The waters raging round her in
this stormy sea have torn a way into the mass of stones and
peat; forming many little coves and creeks; and near the
middle, where the convent stands, these waters have almost
met. Hardly a mile of land divides the eastern bay from the
western bay.

Solovetsk stands a little farther north than Vatna JokuU ;
the sixty-fifth degree of latitude passing close to the monastic
pile. The rocks and islets lying round her are numerous and
lovely, for the sea runs in and out among them, crisp with
motion and light with foam ; and their shores are everywhere
green with mosses and fringed with forests of birch and pine.
The lines are not tame, as on the Karel and Lapland coasts,
for the ground swells upward into bluffs and downs, and one
at least of these ridges may be called a hill. Each height is
crowned by a white church, a green cupola, and a golden cross.
On the down which maybe called a hill stands a larger church,
the belfry of which contains a light. Land, sea, and sky are

58 Free Eussia.

all in keeping ; each a wonder and a beauty in the eyes of
pilgrims of the stormy night.

Running alongside the wharf, on to which we step as easi-
ly as on to Dover Pier, we notice that beyond this beauty of
nature, wliich man has done so much to point and gild, there
is a bright and even a busy look about the commonest things.
Groups of strange men dot the quays ; Lopars, Karels, what
not ; but we soon perceive that Solovetsk is a civihzed no less
than an enchanted isle. The quay is spacious, the port is
sweet and fresh. On our right lies that dock of which Father
John was speaking with such pride. The " Hope," a more
commodious pilgrim-boat than the " Faith," is lying on her
stays. On our left stands a guestrhouse, looking so airy, light,
and clean, that no hostelry on Italian lake could Avear a more
cheerful and inviting face. We notice a lift and crane, as
things not seen in the trading ports ; and one has hardly time
to mark these signs of science ere noticing an iron tramway,
running from the wharf to a great magazine of stores and
goods.

A line of wall, with gates and towers, extends along the up-
per quay ; and high above this line of wall, spring convent,
palace, dome, and cross. A stair leads up from the water to
the Sacred Gates ; and near the pathway from this stair Ave
see two votive chapels ; marking the sjDots on which the im-
perial pilgrims, Peter the Great and Alexander the Benefi-
cent, landed from their boats.

Every thing looks solid, many things look old. Not to
speak of the fortress walls and turrets, built of vast boulders
torn up from the sea-bed in the days of our own Queen Bess,
the groups of palace, church, and belfry rising within those
walls are of older date than any other work of man in this
fai'-away corner of the globe. One cathedral — that of the
Transfiguration — is older than the fortress walls. A second
cathedral — that of the Ascension — dates from the time when
St. Philip Avas prior of Solovetsk. Besides having this air of
antiquity, the place is alive with color, and instinct Avith a
sense of art. The A^otive chapels Avhich peep out here and
there from among the trees are so many pictures ; and these
red crosses by the Avater-margin haA^e been so arranged as to
add a motive and a moral to the scene. Some broad but not

The Holy Isles. 59

unsightly frescoes brighten the main front of the old cathe-
dral, and similar pictures light the spandrel of the Sacred
Gates; while turrets and cupolas of church and chapel are
everywhere gay with green and gold.

One dome, much noticed, and of rarest value in a pilgrim's
eye, is painted azure, fretted with golden stars. That dome is
the crown of a new cathedral built in commemoration of 1854
— that year of wonders — when an English fleet was vanquish-
ed by the Mother of God, Within, the convent looks more du-
rable and splendid than without. Wall, rampart, guest-house,
prison, tower, and church, are all of brick and stone. Every
lobby is painted ; often in a rude and -early style ; but these
rough passages from Holy Writ have a sense and keeping
higher than the morals conveyed by a coat of lime. The
screens and columns in the churches glow with a nobler art ;
though here, again, an eye accustomed to admire no other
than the highest of Italian work will be only too ready to
slight and scorn. The drawing is often weak, the pigment
raw, the metal tawdry ; yet these great breadths of gold and
color impress both eye and brain, especially when the lamps
are lit, the psalm is raised, the incense burning, and the monks,
attired in their long black hoods and robes, are ranged in
front of the royal gates.

This pretty white house under the convent wall, near the
Sacred Gates, was built in Avitness of a miracle, and is known
as the Miracle Church. A pilgrim, eating a bit of white bread,
which a pope had given him, let a crumb of it fall to the
ground, when a strange dog tried to snatch it up. The crumb
seemed to rise into the dog's mouth and then slip away from
him, as though it were alive. That dog was the devil. Many
persons saw this victory of the holy bread, and the monks of
Solovetsk built a shrine on the spot to keep the memory of
that miraclp alive ; and here it stands on the bay, between the
chapels erected on the spots where Peter the Great and Alex-
ander the Second landed from their ships.

When we come to drive, and sail, and walk into the re-
cesses of this group of isles, we find them not less lovely than
the first sweet promise of the bay in which we land. For-
ests surround, and lakelets pursue us, at every step. The
wood is birch and pine ; birch of the sort called silver, pine

60 Free Eussia.

of the alpine stock. The trees are big enough for beauty, and
the undergrowths are red with berries and bright with Arctic
flowers. Here and there we come upon a clearing, with a dip
into some green valley, in the bed of Avhich slumbers a lovely
lake. A scent of hay is in the air, and a perfume new to my
nostrils', which my companions tell me breathes from the cot-
ton-grass growing on the margin of every pool. At every
turn of the road we find a cross, well shaped and carved, and
stained dark red; while the end of every forest lane is closed
by a painted chapel, a lonely father's cell. A deep, soft silence
reigns through earth and sky.

But the beauty of beauties lies in the lakes. More than a
hundred of these lovely sheets of water nestle in the depths
of pine-wood and birch- wood. Most famous of all these sheets
is the Holy Lake, lying close behind the convent wall ; most
beautiful of all, to my poor taste, is the White Lake, on the
road to St. Savatie's Cell and Striking Hill.

Holy Lake, a sheet of black watei', deep and fresh, though
it is not a hundred yards from the sea, has a function in the
pilgrim's course. Arriving at Solovetsk, the bands of pil-
grims march to this lake and strip to bathe. The waters are
holy, and refresh the spirit while they j)urify the flesh. With-
out a word, the pilgrims enter a shed, throw ofE their rags,
and leap into the flood; except some six or seven city-folk,
who shiver in their shoes at the thought of that wholesome
plunge. Their bath being finished, the pilgrims go to dinner
and to prayers.

White Lake lies seven or eight miles from the convent,
sunk in a green hollow, with wooded banks, and a number of
islets, stopping the lovely view with a yet more lovely pause.
If St. Savatie had been an artist, one need not have Avondered
at his wandering into such a spot.

Yet the chief islet in this paradise of the Frozen Sea has
one defect. When looking down from the belfry of Striking
Hill on the intricate maze of sea and land, of lake and ridge,
of copse and brake, of lawn and dell ; each tender breadth of
bright green grass, each sombre belt of dark-green pine, being
marked by a w^hite memorial church ; you gaze and wonder,
conscious of some hunger of the sense ; it may be of the eye,
it may be of the ear ; your heart declaring all the while that,

The Holy Isles. 61

wealthy as the landscape seems, it lacks some last poetic
charm. It is the want of animal life. No flock is in the
meadow, and no herd is on the slope. No bark of dog comes
on the air ; no low of kine is on the lake. Neither cow nor
calf, neither sheep nor lamb, neither goat nor kid, is seen in
all the length of country from Striking Hill to the convent
gate. Man is here alone, and feels that he is alone.

This defect in the landscape is radical; not to be denied,
and never to be cured. Not that cattle would not graze on
these slopes and thrive in these Avoods. Three miles in front
of Solovetsk stands the isle called Zaet, on which sheep and
cattle browse ; and five or six miles in the rear lies Moksalma,
a large grassy isle, on which the poultry cackle, the horses
feed, and the cows give milk. These animals would thrive
on the holy isle, if they were not driven away by monastic
rule ; but Solovetsk has been sworn of the celibate order ; and
love is banished from the saintly soil. No mother is here per-
mitted to fondle and protect her young; a great defect in
landscapes otherwise lovely to eye and heart — a denial of
nature in her tenderest forms.

The law is uniform, and kept with a rigor to which the im-
perial power itself must bend. No creature of the female sex
may dwell on the isle. The peasants from the Karel coast
are said to be so strongly impressed with the sin of breaking
this rule, that they would rather leap into the sea than bring
over a female cat. A woman may come in the pilgrim season
to say her prayers, but that duty done she must go her way.
Summer is a time of license — a sort of carnival season, during
which the letter of a golden rule is suspended for the good of
souls. A woman may lodge in the guest-house, feed in the
refectory ; but she must quit the wards before nine at night.
Some of the more holy chapels she may not enter : and her
day of privilege is always short. A male pilgrim can reside
at Solovetsk for a year ; a female must be gone with the boats
that bring her to the shrine. By an act of imperial grace,
the commander of his majesty's forces in the island — an army
some sixty strong — is allowed to have his wife and children
with him during the pilgrim's year ; that is to say, from June
to August ; but when the last boat returns to Archangel with
the men of prayer, the lady and her little folk must leave their

62 Free Russia.

home ill this lioly place, A reign of piety and order is sup-
posed to come with the early snows, and it is a question
whether the empress herself would be allowed to set her foot
on the island in that better time.

The rule is easily enforced in the bay of Solovetsk, under
the convent walls ; not so easily enforced at Zaet, Moksalma,
and the still more distant isles, where tiny little convents have
been built on spots inhabited by famous saints. In these
more distant settlements it is hai*d to protect the holy men
from female intrusion ; for the Karel girls are fond of mis-
chief, and they paddle about these isles in their light summer
craft by day and night. The aged fathers only are allowed to
live in such perilous spots.

CHAPTER XL

THE LOCAL SAINTS,

This exclusion of women from the Holy Isle Avas the doing
of Savatie, first of the Local Saints.

Savatie, the original anchoret of Solovetsk, was one day
praying near a lake, when he heard a cry, as of a woman in
pain. His comrade said it must have been a dream : for no
woman was living nearer to their " desert " than the Karel
coast. The saint went forth again to pray ; but once again
his devotions were disturbed by cries and sobSo Going round
by the banks of the lake to see, he found a young woman
lying on the ground, with her flesh all bruised, her back all
bleeding from recent blows. She was a fisherman's wife. On
being asked who had done her this harm, she said that two
young men, with bright faces and dressed in white raiment,
came to her hut while her husband was away, and telling her
she must go after him, as the land belonged to God, and no
woman must sleep on it a single night, they threw her on the
ground, struck her with rods, and made her cry with pain.

When she could walk, the poor creature got into her boat,
and St. Savatie saw her no more. The fisherman came to fish,
but his wife remained at home ; and in this way w^oman was

The Local Saints. 63

driven by angels from the Holy Isle. ISk) monk, no layman,
ever doubts this story. How can he ? Here, to this day,
stands the log house in which Savatie dwelt, and twenty paces
from it lies the mossy bank on which he knelt. Across the
water there, beside yon clump of pines, rose the fisherman's
shed. The sharp ascent on which the church and lighthouse
glisten, is still called Striking Hill.

This St. Savatie was a monk from N'ovgorod hving at the
old convent of Belozersk, in which he served the office of ton-
surer — shaver of heads ; but longing for a life of greater sol-
itude than his convent gave him, he persuaded one of his
brethren, named Valaam, to go up with him into the deserts
near the Polar Sea. Boyars from his country-side were then
going up into the north ; and why should holy men not bear
as much for Christ as boyars and traders bore for pelf ? On
praying all night in their chapels, these boyars and traders
ran to their archbishop with the cry: " Oh, give us leave,
Vladika, to go forth, man and horse, and win new lands for
St. Sophia." Settling in Kem, in Suma, in Soroka, and at
other points, these men were adding a region larger than the
mother-country to the territories ruled by Novgorod the
Great, The story of these boyars stirred up Savatie to follow
in their wake, and labor in the desolate land which they were
opening up.

Toiling through the virgin woods and sandy plains, Savatie
and" his companion Valaam arrived on the Vieg (in 1429), and
found a pious monk, named German, who had also come from
the* south country. Looking towards the east, these monks
perceived, in the watery waste, a group of isles ; and trim-
ming a light skiff, Savatie and German crossed the sea.
Landing on the largest isle, they made a "desert" on the
shore of a lakelet, lying at the foot of a hill on which birch
and pine trees grew to the top. Their lake was sheltered, the
knoll was high ; and from the summit they could see the
sprinkle of isles and their embracing waves, as far as Orloff
Cape to the south, the downs of Kem on the west.

Savatie brought Avith him a picture of the Virgin, not then
knowm to possess miracidous virtues, which he hung up in a
chapel built of logs. Near to this chapel he made for him-
self and his companion a hut of reeds and sticks, in which

64 Free Eussia.

they lived in peace and prayer until the rigor of the climate
wore them out. After six years spent in solitude, German
sailed back to the Vieg ; and Savatie, finding himself alone on
the rock, in that desert from which he had banished woman
and love, became afraid of dying without a priest being at
hand to shrive and put him beneath the grass. Getting into
his skiff, he also crossed to Soroka, where he obtained from
Father Xathaniel, a prior who chanced to visit that town, the
bread and cup ; and then, his work on earth being done, he
passed away to his eternal rest.

Laying him in the sands at Soroka, Nathaniel raised a
chapel of pine logs, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, above his
grave ; and there Savatie would have lain forever, his name
unknown, his saintly rank unrecognized on earth, had he not
fallen in the path of a man of stronger and more enduring
spirit.

One of the bold adventurers from Kovgorod, named Ga-
briel, settling with his wife Barbara in the new village of Tol-
vui, on the banks of Lake Onega, had a son, whom he called
Zosima, and devoted to God. Zosima, a monk while he was
yet a child, took his vows in the monastery of Palaostrofsk,
near his father's home; and on reaching the age when he
could act for himself, he divided his inheritance among his
kin, and taking up his pilgrim's staff dej^arted for the north.
At Suma he fell in with German, who told him of the life he
had lived six years in his desert onthe lonely rock. Zosima,
taken by this tale, persuaded German to show him the spot
where he and Savatie had dwelt so long. They crossed the
sea. A lucky breeze bore them past Zaet, into a small and
quiet bay ; and when they leaped on shore — then strewn with
boulders, and green with forest trees — they found themselves
not only on the salt sea, but close to a deep and lustrous lake,
the waters of which were sweet to the taste, and swarming
with fish, the necessary food of monks.

Kneeling on the sand in prayer, Zosima was nerved by a
miraculous vision to found a religious colony in that lonely
island, even as Marfa's people were founding secular colonies
at Suma, Soroka, and Kem. He saw, as in a dream, a bright
and comely monastic pile, M-ith swelling domes and lofty tur-
rets, standing on the brink of that lovely sheet of Avater — •

The Local Saixts. 65

henceforth to be known as the Holy Lake. Startuig from his
knees, he told his companion, German, of the vision he had
seen ; described the walls, the Sacred Gates, the clusters of
spires and domes; in a word, the convent in the splendor of
its present form. They cut down a pine, and framed it into
a cross, which they planted in the ground ; in token that this
island in the frozen deep belonged to God and to Ilis saints.
This act of consecrating the isle took place (in 1436) a year
after St, Savatie died.

The monks erected cabins near this cross ; in which cabins
they dwelt, about a mile apart, so as not to crowd upon each
other in their desert home. The sites are marked by chapels
erected to perpetuate their fame.

The tale of these young hermits living in their desert on
the Frozen Sea being noised abroad in cloisters, monks from
all sides of the north country came to join them ; bringing
strong thews and eager souls to aid in their task of raising up
in that wild region, and among those savage tribes, a temple
of the living God. In time a church grew round and above
the original cross ; and as none of the hermits were in holy
orders, they sent a messenger to Yon, then archbishop of
Novgorod, asking hira for a blessing on their work, and pray-
ing him to send them a prior who could celebrate mass.
Yon gave them his benediction and his servant Pavel. Pavel
travelled into the north, and consecrated their humble church ;
but the climate was too hard for him to bear. A second pri-
or came out in Feodosie ; a third prior in Yon ; both of
whom staid some time in the Frozen Sea, and only went back
to Novgorod when they were broken in health and advanced
in years.

When Yon, the third prior, left them, the fathers held a
meeting to consider their future course. Sixteen years had
now passed by since Zosima and German crossed the sea
from Suma ; ten or twelve years since Pavel consecrated
their humble church. In less than a dozen years three priors
had come and gone ; and every one saw that monks who had
grown old in the Volkhoff district could not live in the Froz-
en Sea. The brethren asked their archbishop to give them a
prior from their own more hardy ranks ; and all these breth-
ren joined in the prayer that Zosima, leader of the colony

5

6Q FiiEE EussiA.

from first to last, would take tliis office of prior upon himself.
His poor opinion of himself gave place to a sense of the pub-
lic good.

Marching on foot to Novgorod, a journey of more than a
thousand miles, through a country without a road, Zosima
went up to the great city, where he was received by the Vla-
dika, and was ordained a priest. From the mayor and chief
boyars he obtained a more definite cession of the isles than
Prior Yon had been able to secure ; and thus he came back
to his convent as pope and prior, with the fame of a holy
man, to whom nothing might be denied. Getting leave to
remove the bones of Savatie from Soroka to Solovetsk, he
took up his body f]-om the earth, and finding it pure and
fresh, he laid the incorruptible relics in the crypt of his infant
church.

More and more monks arrived in the lonely isles ; and pil-
grims from far and near began to cross the sea; for the
tomb of Savatie w^as said to work miraculous cures. But as
the monastery grew in fame and wealth, the troubles of the
world came down upon the prior and his monks. The men
of Kem began to see that this bank in the Frozen Sea was a
valuable prize ; and the lords of Anzersk and Moksalma quar-
relled with the monks ; disputing their right over the fore-
shores, and pi'essing tliem with claims about the waifs and
strays. At length, in his green old age, Zosima girded up his
loins, and taking his pastoral staff in hand, set out for Nov-
gorod, in the hope of seeing Marfa in person, and of settling,
once and forever, the question of his claim to these rocks by
asking for the lordship of Kem itself to be vested in the pri-
or of Solovetsk !

On a column of the great cathedral of St. Soj^hia, in the
Kremlin of Novgorod, a series of frescoes tells the story of
this visit of St. Zosima to the parent state. One picture
takes the eye with a singular and abiding force — a banquet
in a noble hall, in Avhich the table is surrounded by headless
guests.

Passing through the city from house to house, Zosima was
received in nearly all with honor, as became his years and
fame ; but not in all. The boyars of Kem had friends in the
city; and the Marfa's ear had been filled with tales against

The Local Saints. 67

his monkish guile and monkish greed. From her door he
was driven with scorn ; and her house was that in which he
Avas most desirous of being received in peace. Knowing that
he could do nothing without her aid, Zosima set himself, by-
patient waiting on events, to overcome her fury against the
cause which he was there to plead. At length, her feeling
being subdued, she granted him a new charter (dated 1470,
and still preserved at Solovetsk), confirming his right over all
the lands, lakes, forests and fore-shores of the Holy Isles, to-
gether with the lordship of Kem, made over, then and for all
coming time, to the service of God.

Before Zosima left the great city, Marfa invited him to her
table, where he was to take his leave, not only of herself, but
of the chief boyars. As the prior sat at meat, the company
noticed that his face was sad, that his eyes Avere fixed on
space, that his soul seemed moved by some unseen cause.
" What is the matter ?" cried the guests. He would not
speak ; and when they pressed around him closely, they per-
ceived that burning drops were rolling down his cheeks.
More eagerly than ever, they demanded to know what he
saw in his fixed and terrible stare. "I see," said the monk,
"six boyars at a feast, all seated at a table without their
heads !"

That dinner-party is the subject painted on the column in
St. Sophia ; and the legend says that every man who sat with
him that day at Marfa's table had his head sliced off by Ivan
the Third, when the proud and ancient republic fell before
the destroyer of the Golden Horde.

Strengthened by his new titles, Zosima came back to
Solovetsk a prince ; and the pile which he governed took the
style, which it has ever since borne, of

^\]t (HouDtnt tljat (JJnburttlj JTorcrcr.

Zosima ruled his convent as prior for twenty-six years ; and
after a hermitage of forty-two years on his lowly rock he 23ass-
ed away into his rest.

On his dying couch he told his disciples that he was about
to quit them in the flesh, but only in the flesh. He jjromised
to be with them in the spirit ; watching in the same cells, and
kneeling at the same graves. He bade them thank God daily

68 Fkee Eussia.

for the promise that their convent should endure forever; safe
as a rock, and sacred as a shrine — even though it stood in the
centre of a raging sea — in the reach of pitiless foes. And
then he passed away — the second of these local saints — ^leav-
ing, as his legacy to mankind, the temporal and spiritual
germs of this great sanctuary in the Frozen Sea.

About that time the third monk also died — German, the
companion of Savatie, in his cabin near Striking Hill ; after-
wards of Zosima, in his hut by the Holy Lake. He died at
Novgorod, to which city he had again returned from the
north. His bones were begged from the monks in whose
grounds they lay, and being carried to Solovetsk, were laid in
a shrine near the graves of his ancient and more famous
friends.

Such was the origin of the convent over which the Archi-
mandrite Feofan now rules and reigns.

CHAPTER XII.

A MOJfASTIC HOUSEHOLD.

My letter from his Sanctity of Archangel having been sent
in to Feofan, Archimandrite of Solovetsk, an invitation to the
palace arrives in due form by the mouth of Father Hilarion ;
who may be described to the lay world as the Archimandrite's
minister for secular affairs. Father Hilarion is attended by
Father John, who seems to have taken upon himself the office
of my companion-in-chief. Attiring myself in befitting robes,
we pass through the Sacred Gates, and after pausing for a
moment to glance at the models of Peter's yacht and frigate,
there laid up, and to notice some ancient frescoes which line
the passage, we mount a flight of steps, and find ourselves
standing at the Archimandrite's door.

The chief of this monastery is a great man; one of the
greatest men in the Russian Church ; higher, as some folks say,
than many a man who calls himself bishop, and even metropo-
lite. Since the days of Peter the Great, the monastery of
Solovetsk has been an indejiendent sj)iritual power; owning

A Monastic Household. 69

no master in the Church, and answering to no authority save
that of the Holy Governing Synod.

Like an archbishop, the Archimandrite of Solovetsk Las the
right to bless his congregation by waving three tapers in his
right hand over two tapers in his left. He lives in a palace ;
he receives four thousand rubles a year in money ; and the
cost of his house, his table, his vestments, and his boats, comes
out of the monastic fund. He has a garden, a vineyard, and
a country-house ; and his choice of a cell in the sunniest nooks
of these sacred isles. His personal rank is that of a prince,
with a dignity which no secular rank can give ; since he reigns
alike over the bodies and the souls of men.

Dressed in his cowl and frock, on which hangs a splendid
sapphire cross, Feofan, a small, slight man — with the ascetic
face, the womanlike curls, and vanishing figure, which you
note in nearly all these celibate priests — advances to meet us
near the door, and after blessing Father John, and shaking me
by the hand, he leads us to an inner room, hung with choice
prints, and warmed by carpets and rugs, where he places me
on the sofa by his side, while the two fathers stand ai>art, in
respectful attitude, as though they were in church.

" You are not English ?" he inquires, in a tender tone, just
marked by a touch — a very light touch — of humor.

" Yes, English, certainly."

A turn of his eye, made slowly, and by design, directs my
attention to his finger, which reclines on an object hardly to
have been expected on an Archimandrite's table ; an iron shell !
The Tower-mark proves that it must have been fired from an
English gun. A faint smile flits across the Archimandrite's
face. There it stands ; an English shell, unburst ; the stopper
drawn ; and two plugs near it on a tray. That missile, it is
clear, must have fallen into some soft bed of sand or peat.

" You are the first pilgrim who ever came from your coun-
try to Solovetsk," says Feofan, smiling. " One man came be-
fore you in a steamship ; he was an engineer — one Anderson ;
you know him, maybe ? No ! He was a good man — he
minded his engines well ; but he could not live on fish and
quass — he asked for beef and beer ; and when we told him we
had none to give him, he went away. No other English ever
came."

70 Free Russia.

He passes on to talk of the Holy Sepulchre and the Russian
convent near the Jaffa Gate.

" You are welcome to Solovetsk," he says at partuig ; " see
what you wish to see, go where you wish to go, and come to
me when you like." Nothing could be sweeter than his voice,
nothing softer than his smile, as he spake these words ; and
seeing the twinkle in his eye, as we stand near the English
shell, I also smile and add : " On the mantel-piece of my Avrit-
ing-room in London there lies just such another shell, a trifle
thinner in the girth."

" Yes ?" he asks, a little curious — for a monk.

" My shell has the Russian mark ; it was fired from Sebasto-
pol, and i^icked up by a friend of my own in his trench before
the Russian lines."

Feofan laughs, so far as an Archimandrite ever laughs — in
the eyes and about the mouth. From this hour his house
and household are at my disposal — his boat, his carriage, and
his driver ; every thing is done to make my residence in the
convent pleasant ; and every night my host is good enough to
receive from his officers a full report of Avhat I have seen and
what I have said during the day !

Three hundred monks of all classes reside on the Holy Isle.
The chief is, of course, the Archimandrite ; next to him come
forty monks, who are also popes ; then come seventy or
eighty monks who wear the hood and have taken the final
vows ; after these orders come the postulants, acolytes, sing-
ers, servants. Lodgers, scholars, and hired laymen fall into a
second class.

These brethren are of all ages and conditions, from the pret-
ty child who serves at table to the decrepit father who can not
leave his cell ; from the monk of noble birth and ample for-
tune to the brother who landed on these islands as a tramp.
They wear the same habit, eat at the same board, hsten to the
same chants, and live the same life. Each brother has his sep-
arate cell, in which he sleeps and works ; but every one, unless
infirm with years and sickness, must appear in chapel at the
hour of prayer, in refectory at the hour of meals. Hood and
gown, made of the same serge, and cut in the same style, must
be worn by all, excepting only by the priest who reads the serv-
ice for the day. They suffer their beards and locks to grow.

A Monastic Household, 71

and spend much time in combing and smoothing these abundant
growths, A flowing beard is the pride of monks and men ; but
"while the beard is coming, a young fellow combs and parts his
hair with all the coquetry of a girl, "When looking at a bevy
of boys in a church, their heads uncovered, their locks, shed
down the centre, hanging about their shoulders, you might
easily mistake them for singers of the sweeter sex,

Not many of these fathers could be truly described as ordi-
nary men, A few are pure fanatics, who fear to lose their souls ;
still more are men "with a natural calling for religious life, A
goodly list are prisoners of the church, sent up from convents
in the south and west. These last are the salt and wine of
Solovetsk; the men who keep it sweet and make it strong.
The offense for which they suffer is too much zeal : a learned
and critical spirit, a disposition to find fault, a craving for re-
form, a wish to fall back on the purity of ancient times. For
such disorders of the mind an ordinary monk has no compas-
sion; and a journey to the, desert of Solovetsk is thought to
be for such diseases the only cure.

An Archimandrite, appointed to his office by the Holy
Governing Synod, must be a man of learning and ability, able
to instruct his brethren and to rule his house. He is expect-
ed to burn like a shining light, to fast very often, to pray very
much, to rise very early, and to live like a saint. The breth-
ren keep an eye upon their chief. If he is hard with himself
he may be hard with them ; but woe to him if he is weak in the
flesh — if he wears fine linen about his throat, if savory dishes
steam upon his board, if the riumka — that tiny glass out of
which whisky is drunk — goes often to his lips. In every
monk about his chamber he finds a critic ; in nearly every one
he fears a spy. It is not easy to satisfy them all. One father
wishes for a sterner life, another thinks the discipline too strict.
By every post some letters of complaint go out, and every
member of the Holy Governing Synod may be told in secret
of the Archimandrite's sins. If he fails to Avin his critics, the
appeals against his rule increase in number and in boldness,
till at length inquiry is begun, bad feeling is provoked on ev-
ery side, and the offending chieftain is promoted — for the sake
of peace — to some other place.

The Archimandrite of Solovetsk lias the assistance of three

72 Free El'ssia.

grccat officers, who may be called Lis manager, his treasurer,
and his custodian; officers who must be not only monks but
popes.

Father Ililarion is the manager, with the duty of conduct-
ing the more worldly business of his convent. It is he who
lodges the guests when they arrive, who looks after the shijDs
and docks, who employs the laborers and conducts the farms,
who sends out smacks to fish, who deals with skippers, Avho
buys and sells stores, who keeps the workshops in order, and
who regulates the coming and going of the pilgrim's boat. It
is he who keej^s church and tomb in repair, who sees that the
fathers are warmly clad, who takes chargeof the buildings and
furniture, who superintends the kitchen, who keeps an eye on
corridor and yard, who orders books and prints, who manages
the painting-room and the photographer's office, who inspects
the cells, and provides that every one has a bench, a press, a
looking-glass, and a comb.

Father Michael is the treasurer, with the duty of receiving
all gifts and paying all accounts. The income of the monas-
tery is derived from two sources : from the sale of what is made
, in the monkish workshops, and from the gifts of pilgrims
I and of those who send offerings by pilgrims. No one can
learn how much they receive from either source ; for the re-
ceiving-boxes are placed in corners, and the contributor is en-
couraged to conceal from his left hand what his right hand
drops in. Forty thousand rubles a year has been mentioned
to me as the sum received in gifts ; but five thousand pounds
must be far below the amount of money passing in a year under
Father Michael's eye. It is probably eight or ten. The char-
ities of these monks are bounded only by the power of the
people to come near them ; and in the harder class of win-
ters the peasants and fishermen push through the floes of ice
from beyond Orloff Cape and Kandalax Bay in search of a
basket of convent bread. These folks are always fed when
they arrive, are always supplied with loaves when they de-
part. The schools, too, cost no little ; for the monks receive
all boys who come to them — sent as they hold, by the Father
whom they serve.

Fatlier Alexander is the custodian, with the duty of keeping
the monastic wardrobe, together with the ritual books, the

A Pilgkim's Day. 73

charters and papers, the jewels and the altar plate. His office is
in the sacristy, with the treasures of which he is perfectly fa-
miliar, from ' the letter, in Cyrilian character and Slavonic
phrase, by which Marfa of Novgorod gave this islet to the
monks, down to that pious reliquary in which are kept some
fragments of English shells ; kept with as much veneration
as bones of saints and chips from the genuine cross !

CHAPTER XIH.
A pilgrim's day

A pilgpjm's day begins in the early moi'ning, and lengthens
late into the night.

At two o'clock, when it has hardly yet grown dark in our
cells, a monk comes down the passage, tinkhng his bell and
droning out, "Rise and come to prayer." Starting at his
cry, we huddle on our clothes, and rush from our hot rooms,
heated by stoves, into the open air ; men and women, boys
and girls, boatmen and woodmen, hurrying through the night
towards the Sacred Gates.

At half-past two the first matins commence in the new
church — the Miracle Church — dedicated to the Victress,
Mother of God ; in which lie the bones of St. Savatie and St.
Zosima, in the corner, as the highest place. A hundred lamps
are lit, and the wall-screen of pictured saints glows richly in
our sleepy eyes. Men and women, soldiers and peasants, turn
into that sacred corner where the saints repose, cross them-
selves seven times, bow their foreheads to the ground, and
kiss the pavement before the shrine.

Falling into our places near the altar-screen ; arranging
ourselves in files, rank behind rank, in open order, so that
each can kneel and kiss the ground without pushing against
his neighbor ; we stand erect, uncovered, while the pope re-
cites his office, and the monks respond their chant. These
matins are not over until four o'clock.

A second service opens in the old cathedral at half-past
three, and lasts until half-past five ; and when the fii'st pope

74 Free Kussia.

has given his blessing, some of the more ardent pilgrims rush
from the Virgin's church to the cathedral, where they stand
in prayer, and kneel to kiss the stones for ninety minutes
more ; at the end of which time they receive a second bene-
diction from a second pope.

An hour is now spent by the jDilgrims in either praying at
the tombs of saints, or pacing a long gallery, so contrived as
to connect the several churches and other monastic buildings
by a covered way. Along the walls of this gallery rude and
early Russian artists have j^ainted the joys of heaven, the
pains of purgatory, and the pangs of hell. These pictures
seize the eyes of my fellow-pilgrims, though in quaint and
dramatic terror they sink below the level of such old work in
the Gothic cloisters of the Rhine. A Russian painter has no
variety of invention ; a devil is to him a monkey Avith a spiked
tail and a tongue of flame ; and hell itself is only a hot place
in which sinners are either fried by a fiend, or chawed up,
flesh and bone, by a monstrous bear. Yet, children some-
times swoon, and women go mad from fright, on seeing these
threats of a future state. My own poor time is given to scan-
ning a miraculous picture of Jerusalem, said to have been
painted on the staircase by a monk of Solovetsk, as a vision
of the Holy City, seen by him in a dream. After studying
the details for a while, I recognize in this vision of the holy
man a plan of Olivet and Ziou copied from an old Greek
print !

All this time the pilgrims are bound to fast.

At seven o'clock the bells announce early mass, and we re-
pair to the Miracle Church, where, after due crossings and
prostration before the tomb, we fall into rank as before, and
listen for an hour and a half to the sacred ritual, chanted with
increasing fire.

When this first mass is over, the time being nearly nine
o'clock, the weaker brethren may indulge themselves with a
cup of tea ; but the better pilgrim denies himself this solace,
as a temptation of the Evil Spirit ; and even his Aveaker broth-
er has not much time to dally with the fumes of his dai-ling
herb. The great bell in the convent yard, a gift of the reign-
ing Emperor, and one more witness to the year of wonders,
warns us that the highest service of the day is close at hand.

A Pilgrim's Day. 75

Precisely at nine o'clock the monks assemble in the cathe-
dral to celebrate high mass ; and the congregation being al-
ready met, the tapers are lit, the deacon begins to read, the
clergy take up the responses, and the officiating priest, array-
ed in his shining cope and cap, recites the old and mystical
forms of Slavonic prayer and praise. Two hours by the clock
we stand in front of that golden shrine ; stand on the granite
pavement — all uncovered, many unshod — listening with rav-
ished ears to what is certainly the noblest ceremonial music
of the Russian Church.

High mass being sung and said, we ebb back slowly from
the cathedral into the long gallery, where we have a few min-
utes more of purgatorial fire, and tlien a monk announces din-
ner, and the devoutest pilgrim in the band accepts his signal
with a thankful look.

The dining-hall to which we adjourn with some irregular
haste is a vaulted chamber below the cathedral, and in any
other country than Russia Avould be called a crypt. But men
must build according to their clime. The same church would
not serve for winter and summer, on account of the cold and
lieat ; and hence a sacred edifice is nearly always divided into
an upper and a lower church ; the upper tier being used in
summer, the lower tier in winter. Our dining-hall at Solo-
vetsk is the winter church.

Long tables run down the room, and curl round the circu-
lar shaft which sustains the cathedral floor. On these tables
the first course is already laid ; a tin plate for each guest, in
which lies a wooden spoon, a knife and fork ; and by the side
of this tin platter a pound of rye bread. The pilgrims are ex-
pected to dine in messes of four, like monks. A small tin
dish is laid between each mess, containing one salted sprat,
divided into ionv "bits by a knife, and four small slices of raw
onion. To each mess is given a copper tureen of sour quass,
and a dish of salt codfish, broken into small lumps, boUed
down, and left to cool.

A bell rings briskly ; up we start, cross ourselves seven
times, bow towards the floor, sit down again. The captain of
each mess throws pepper and salt into the dish, and stirs up
our pottage with the ladle out of which he drinks his quass.
A second bell rings ; we dip our wooden ladles into the dish

76 Free Kussia.

of cod. A reader climbs into the desk, and drawls the story
of some saint, while a youth carries round a basket of white
bread, already blessed by the priest and broken into bits.
Each pilgrim takes his piece and eats it, crossing himself, time
after time, until the morsel gets completely down his throat.

A third bell rings. Hush of silence; sound of prayer.
Serving-men appear ; our platters are swept away ; a second
course is served. The lx)ys who wait on us, with rosy cheeks,
smooth chins, and hanging locks, look very much like girls.
This second course, consisting of a tureen of cabbage-soup,
takes no long time to eat. A new reader mounts the desk,
and gives us a little more life of saint. A fourth bell jangles;
much more crossing takes place ; the serving-men rush in ;
our tables are again swept clean.

Another course is served ; a soup of fresh herrings, caught
in the convent bay ; the fish verj' good and sweet. Another
reader ; still more life of saint ; and then a fifth bell rings.

A fourth and last course now comes In ; a dainty of barley
paste, boiled rather soft, and eaten with sour milk. Another
reader ; still more life of saint ; and then sixth bell. The
pilgrims rise ; the reader stops, not caring to finish his story ;
and our meal is done.

Our meal, but not the ritual of that meaL Rising from our
bench, we fall once more into rank and file ; the women, who
have dined in a room apart, crowd back into the crypt ; and
we join our voices in a sacrc^l song. Then we stand for a lit-
tle while in silence, each with his head bent down, as humbling
ourselves before the screen, during which a pope distributes
to each pilgrim a second morsel of consecrated bread. Brisk
bell rings again ; the monks raise a psalm of thanksgiving ; a
pope pronounces the bene<^liction ; and then the diners go
their way refreshed with the bread and fish.

It is now near twelve o'clock. The next church service will
not be held until a quarter to four in the afternoon. In the
interval we have the long cloister to walk in ; the holy lake to
see ; the shrine of St. Philip to inspect ; the tombs of good
monks to ATsit ; the priestly robes and monastic jewels to ad-
mire ; with other distractions to devour the time. We go
off, each hu? own way ; some into the country, which is full
of tombs and shrines of the lesser saints ; others to lave their

A Pilgrim's Day. 77

limbs iu tlie holy lake ; not a few to the cells of monks who
veud crosses, amulets, and charms. A Russian is a believer iu
stones, iu rings, in rosaries, in rods ; for he bears about him a
hundred relics of his ancient pagan creeds. His favorite am-
ulet is a cross, which hg can buy in brass for a kopeck ; one
form for a man, a second form for a -woman ; the masculine
form being Nikon's cross, with a true Greek cross in relief ;
the feminine form being a mixture of the two. Once tied
round the neck, this amulet is never .to be taken off, on peril
of sickness and sudden death. To drop it is a fault, to lose it
is a sin. A second talisman is a bone ball, big as a pea, hol-
low, drilled and fitted with a screw. A drop of mercury is
coaxed into the hole, and the screw being turned, the charm
is perfect, and the ball is fastened to the cross. This talisman
protects the wearer from contagion iu the public baths.

Some pilgrims go in boats to the farther isles; to Zaet,
•where two aged monks reside, and a flock of sheep browses
on the herbage ; to Moksalma, a yet more secular spot, where
the cattle feed, and the poultry cluck and crow, in spite of St.
Savatie's rule. These islets supply the convent with milk
and eggs — in which holy men rejoice, as a relief from fish — in
nature's own old-fashioned ways.

- Xot a few of the pilgrims, finding that a special pope has
been appointed to show tilings to their English guest, per-
ceive that the way to see sights is to follow that jiope. They
have to be told — in a kindly voice — that they are not to fol-
low him into the Archimandrite's room. To-day they march
in his train into the wardrobe of the convent, where the copes,
crowns, staffs and crosses employed in these church services
are kept ; a rich and costly collection of robes, embroidered
with flowers and gold, and sparkling with rubies, diamonds
and pearls. Many of these robes are gifts of emperors and
tsars. One of the costliest is the gift of Ivan the Terrible;
but even this splendid garment pales before a gift of Alexan-
der, the reigning prince, who sent the Archimandrite — in re-
membrance of the Virgin's victory — a full set of canonicals,
from crown and staff to robe and shoe.

Exactly at a quarter before four o'clock, a bell commands
ns to retui'n ; for vespers are commencing in the Miracle
Church, Again we kneel at the tombs and kiss the stones,

78 Free Eussia.

the hangings, and the iron rails ; after which we fall in as be-
fore, and listen while the vespers are intoned by monks and
boys. This service concludes at half-past four. Adjourning
to the long gallery, we have another look at the fires of purga-
tory and the abodes of bliss. Five minutes before six we file
into the cathedral for second vespers, and remain there stand-
ing and uncovered — some of us unshod — until half-past seven.

At eight the supper-bell rings. Our company gathers at
the welcome sound ; the monks form a procession ; the pil-
grims trail on ; all moving with a hungry solemnity to the
crypt, where Ave find the long tables groaning, as at dinner,
with the pound of black bread, the salt sprat, the onion part-
ed into four smalL pieces with a knife, and the copper tureen
of quass. Our supper is the dinner sei'ved up afresh, with the
same prayers, the same bowing and crossing, the same bell-
ringing, and the same life of saint. The only difference is,
that in the evening we have no barley-paste and no stale
milk.

"When every one is filled and the fragments are picked up,
we rise to our feet, recite a thanksgiving, and join the fathers
in their evening song. A pope pronovmces a blessing, and
then we are free to go into our cells.

A pilgrim who can read, and may hapi^en to have good
books about him, is expected, on retiring to his cell, to read
through a Psalm of David, and to ponder a little on the Lives
of Saints. The convent gates are closed at nine o'clock ; Avhen
it is thought well for the pilgrim to be in bed.

At two in the morning a monk Avill come into his lobby,
tinkle the bell, and call him to the duties of another day.

CHAPTER XIV.

PRATEE AND LABOR

But if the hours given up to prayer at Solovetsk are many,
the hours given up to toil are more. This convent is a hive
of industry, not less remarkable for Avhat it does in the way
of work than for what it is in the Avay of art and prayer.

Prayer and Labor. 79

" Pray and work " was the maxim of monastic houses, when
monastic houses had a mission in the West. " Pray and
work," said Peter the Great to his council. But such a max-
im is not in harmony with the existing system ; not in har-
mony with the Byzantine Church ; and what you find at Solo-
vetsk is traceable to an older and a better source. Xo monk
in this sanctuary leads an idle life. Not only the fathers who
are not yet popes, but many of those who hold the staff and
give the benediction, devote their talents to the production of
things which may be useful in the church, in the refectory,
and in the cell. A few make articles for sale in the outer
world; such articles as bread, clothes, rosaries and spoons.
All round these ramparts, within the walls, you find a row of
workshops, in which there is a hum of labor from early dawn
until long after dark ; forges, daii-ies, salting-rooms, studies,
ship-yards, bake-houses, weaving-sheds, rope-walks, sewing-
rooms, fruit-stores, breweries, boot-stalls, and the like, through
aH the forms which industry takes in a civilized age. These
monks appear to be masters of every craft. They make near-
ly every thing you can name, from beads to frigates; and they
turn out every thing they touch in admirable style. No
whiter bread is baked, no sweeter quass is brewed, than you
can buy in Solovetsk. To go with Father Hilarion on his
round of inspection is to meet a dozen surprises face to face.
At first the whole exhibition is like a dream ; and you can
hardly fancy that such things are being done by a body of
monks, in a lonely islet, locked up from the Avorld for eight
months in the twelve by storms of sleet and deserts of ice.

These monks make seal-skin caps and belts ; they paint in
oil and carve in wood ; they cure and tan leather ; they knit
woollen hose ; they cast shafts of iron ; they wind and spin
thread ; they polish stones ; they cut out shoes and felts ;
they mould pewter plates ; they dry fruit ; they fell and trim
forest trees ; they clip paper flowers ; they build carts and
sledges ; they embroider capes and bands ; they bake bricks ;
they weave baskets and panniers of silver bark ; they quarry
and hew blocks of stone ; they paint soup-ladles ; they design
altar-pieces, chapels, and convents ; they refine bees'-wax ;
they twist cord and rope ; they forge anchors and marling-
spikes ; they knit and sew, and ply their needles in every

80 Free Eussia.

brancli of useful and decorative art. lu all these departments
of industry, the thing which they turn out is an example of
honest work.

Many of the fathers find a field for their talents on the
farm: in breeding cattle, in growing jDOtatoes, in cutting
grass, in shearing sheep, in rearing poultry, in churning but-
ter, and making cheese. A few jDrefer the more poetic labor
of the garden : pruning grapes, bedding strawberries, hiving
bees, and preserving fruit. The honey made at Mount Alex-
ander is pure and good, the wax is also white and fine.

The convent bakehouse is a thing to see. Boats run over
from every village on the coast to buy convent bread ; often
to beg it ; and every pilgrim who comes to pray takes with
him one loaf as a parting gift. This convent bread is of two
sorts — black and white — leavened and unleavened — domestic
and consecrated. The first is cheap, and eaten at every meal ;
the second is dear, and eaten as an act of grace. Both kinds
are good. A consecrated loaf is small, weighing six or eight
ounces, and is stamped with a sacred sign and blessed by a
pope. The stamp is a cross, with a legend running round the
border in old Slavonic type. These small white loaves of un-
leavened bread are highly prized by pious people ; and a man
who visits such a monastery as either Solovetsk, St. George,
or Troitsa, can not bring back to his servants a gift more
precious in their eyes than a small white loaf.

The brewery is no less perfect in its line thin the bake-
house. Quass is the Russian ale and beer in one ; the na-
tional drink ; consumed by all classes, mixed with nearly ev-
ery dish. Solovetsk has a name and fame for this Russian
brew.

Connected with these good things of the table are the work-
shops for carving platters and j^ainting spoons. The arts of
life are simple in these northern wilds ; forks are seldom seen ;
and knives are not much used. The instrument by which a
man mostly helps himself to his dinner is a spoon. Nearly
all his food is boiled ; his cabbage-soup, his barley mess, his
hash of salt-cod, his dish of sour milk. A deej) platter lies in
the centre of his table, and his homely guests sit round it,
armed with their capacious spoons. Platter and spoon are
carved of Avood, and sometimes they are painted, with skill

Prayer and Labor. 81

and taste ; though the better sorts are kept by pilgi'ims rather
as keei^sakes than for actual use.

A branch of industry allied to carving spoons and platters
is that of twisting baskets and paimiers into shape. Crock-
ery in the forest is rude and dear, and in a long land-journey
the weight of three or four pots and cups would be a serious
• strain. From bark of trees they weave a set of baskets for
personal and domestic use, which are lighter than cork and
handier than tin. You close them by a lid, and carry them
by a loo}). They are perfectly dry and sweet; with just a
flavor, but no more, of the delicious resin of the tree. They
hold milk. You buy them of all sizes, from that of a pepper-
box to that of a water-jar ; obtaining a dozen for a few ko-
pecks.

The panniers are bigger and less delicate, made for rough
passage over stony roads and through bogs of mire. These
panniers are fitted with compartments, like a vintner's crate,
in which you can stow away bottles of wine and insinuate
knives and forks. In the open part of your pannier it is well
(if you are packing for a long drive) to have an assortment
of bark baskets, in which to carry such trifles as mustard,
cream, and salt.

Among the odds and ends of workshops into which you
drop, is that of the weaving-shed, in one of the turrets on the
convent wall ; , a turret which is noticeable not only for the
good work done in the looms, but for the part which it had to
play in the defense of Solovetsk against the English fleet.
The shot which is said to have driven off the " Brisk " was
fired from this Weaver's Tower.

Peering above a sunny corner of the rampart stands the
photographic chamber, and near to this chamber, in a new
range of buildings, are the cells in which the painters and en-
am ellers toil. The sun makes pictures of any thing in his
range ; boats, islets, pilgrims, monks ; but the artists toiling
in these cells are all employed in devotional art. Some are
only copiers ; and the most expert are artists only in a con-
ventional sense. This country is not yet rich in art, except in
that hard Byzantine style which Nikon the Patriarch allowed
in private houses, and enforced in convent, shrine, and church.

But these fathers pride themselves, not without cause, on

82 Free Russia.

being greater in their works by sea than even in their works
by land. Many of them live on board, and take to the water
as to their mother's milk. They are rich in boats, in digging,
and in nets. They wind excellent rope and cord. They know
how to light and buoy dangerous points and armlets. They
keep their own lighthouses. They build lorchas and sloops ;
and they have found by trial that a steamship can be turned
off the stocks at Solovetsk, of Avhich every part, from the
smallest brass nail to the mainmast (with the sole excej)tion
of her engines), is the produce of their toil.

That vessel is called the "Hope." Her crew is mainly a
crew of monks ; and her captain is not only a monk — like Fa-
ther John — but an actual pope. My first sight of this priest-
ly skipper is in front of the royal gates where he is celebrat-
ing mass.

This reverend father takes me after service to see his ves-
sel and the dock in which she lies. Home-built and rigged,
the " Hope " has charms in my eyes possessed by very few
ships. A steamer made by monks in the Frozen Sea, is, in
her way, as high a feat of mind as the spire of Notre Dame
in AntAverp, as the cathedral front at Wells. The thought of
building that steamer was conceived in a monkish brain ; the
lines were fashioned by a monkish pen ; monks felled the
trees, and forged the bolts, and wove the canvas, and curled
the ropes. Monks put her together ; monks painted her cab-
in ; monks stuffed her seats and pillows. Monks launched
her on the sea, and, since they have launched her, they have
sailed in her from port to port.

" How did you learn your trade of skipper ?"
The father smiles. He is a young fellow — younger than
^Father John ; a fellow of thirty or thirty-two, with swarthy
cheek, black eye, and tawny mane ; a man to play the pirate
in some drama of virtuous love. "I was a seaman in my
youth," he says, " and when we wanted a skipper in the con-
vent, I went over to Kem, where we have a school of naviga-
tion, and got the certificate of a master ; that entitled me to
command my ship."

" The council of that school are not very strict ?"
" No ; not with monks. We have our own ways ; we labor
in the Lord ; and He jjrotects us in Avhat we do for Him."

Prayer and Labor. 83

" Through human means ?"

" No ; by His own right hand, put forth under all men's
eyes. You see, the first time that we left the convent for
Archangel, we were weak in hands and strange to our work.
A storm came on; the 'Hope' was driven on shore. An-
other crew would have taken to their boats and lost their
ship, if not their lives. We prayed to the Most Pure Mother
of God : at first she would not hear us on account of our sins ;
but we would not be denied, and sang our psalms until the
wind went down."

" You were still ashore ?"

" Yes ; grooved in a bed of sand ; but when the wind
veered round, the ship began to heave and stir. We tackled
her with ropes and got her afloat once more. Slava Bogu !
It was her act !"

The dock of which Father John spoke with pride turns out
to be not a dock only, but a dry dock ! Now, a dock, even
where it is a common dock, is one of those signs by which
one may gauge — as by the strength of a city wall, the splen-
dor of a court of justice and the beauty of a public garden —
the height to which a people have attained. In Russia docks
are extremely rare. Not a dozen ports in the empire can
boast a dock. Archangel has no dock ; Astrachan has no
dock ; Rostoff has no dock. It is only in such cities as Riga
and Odessa, built and occupied by foreigners, that you find
such things. The dry dock at Solovetsk is the only sample
of its kind in the whole of Russia Proper ! Cronstadt has a
dry dock; but Cronstadt is in the Finnish waters — a Ger-
man port, with a German name. The only work of this kind
existing on Russian ground is the product of monkish enter-
prise and skill.

Priests take their share in all these labors. When a monk
enters into orders he is free to devote himself, if he chooses,
to the Church service only, since the Holy Governing Synod
recognizes the right of a poi:)e to a maintenance in his office ;
but in the Convent of Solovetsk, a priest rarely confines his
activity to his sacred duties. Work is the sign of a religious
life. If any man shows a talent for either art or business, he
is excited by the praise of his fellows and superiors to pursue
the call of his genius, devoting the produce of his labor to the

8-i Free Eussia.

glory of God, One pope is a farmer, a second a painter, a
third a fisherman ; this man is a collector of simples, that a
copier of manuscripts, and this, again, a binder of books.

Of these vocations that of the schoolmaster is not the least
coveted. All children who come to Solovetsk are kept for a
year, if not for a longer time. The lodging is homely and
the teaching rough ; for the schools are adapted to the state
of the country ; and the food and sleeping-rooms are raised
only a little above the comforts of a peasant's home. No one
is sent away untaught ; but only a few are kept beyond a
year. If a man likes to remain and work in the convent he
can hire himself out as a laborer, either in the fishing-boats
or on the farms. He dines in summer, like the monks, on
bread, fish and quass ; in winter he is provided with salt mut-
ton, cured on the farm — a luxury his masters may not touch.
Many of these boys remain for life, living in a celibate state,
like the monks ; but sure of a dinner arid a bed, safe from the
conscription, and free from family cares. Some of them take
vows. If they go back into the world they are likely to find
places on account of their past ; in any case they can shift for
themselves, since a lad who has lived a few years in this con-
vent is pretty sure to be able to fish and farm, to cook his
own dinner, and to mend his own boots.

CHAPTER XV.

BLACK CLERGY.

All men of the higher classes in Russia talk of their Black
Clergy as a body of worthless fellows ; idle, ignorant, prof-
Hgate; set apart by their vows as unsocial; to whom no
terms should be offered, with whom no capitulations need be
kept. "Away with them, root and branch !" is a general cry,
delivered by young and liberal Russians in the undertone of
a fixed resolve.

The men who raise this cry are not simply scoffers and
scorners, making war on religious ideas and ecclesiastical in-
stitutions. Only too often they are men who love their

Black Clergy. 85

church, -who support their parish priests, and who wish to
plant their country in the foremost line of Christian states.
Russia, they say, possesses ten thousand monks ; and these
ten thousand monks they would hand over to a drill sergeant
and convert into regiments of the line.

This rancor of the educated classes towards the monks — a

rancor roused and fed by their undying hatred of reforms in

Church and State — compels one to mark the extent and study

the sources of monastic power. This study will take us far

' and wide : though it will also bring us in the end to Solovetsk

'^ once more.

yj "A desert dotted with cloisters," would be no untrue de-

^ scription of the country spreading southward from the Polar

' A Sea to the Tartar Steppe. In Xew Russia, in the khanates of

v^ Kazan and Crimea, in the steppes of the Lower Volga, and

in the wastes of Siberia, it would not be true. But Great

Russia is a paradise of monks. In the vast regions stretching

from Kem to Belgorod — an eagle's flight from north to south

of a thousand miles — from Pskoff on Lake Peipus, to Vasil on

the Middle Volga — a similar flight from west to east of seven

hundred miles — the land is everywhere bright with cloisters,

musical with monastic bells.

Xothing on this earth's surface can be drearier than a Rus-
sian forest, imless it be a Russian plain. The forest is a
growth of stunted birch and pine ; the trees of one height and
girth ; the fringe of black shoots unvaried save by some
break of bog, some length of colorless lake. The plain is a
stretch of moor, without a swell, without a tree, without a
town, for perhaps a hundred leagues ; on which the grass, if
grass such herbage can be called, is brown ; while the village,
if such a scatter of cabins can be called by a name so tender
and picturesque, is nothing but log and mud. A traveller's
eye would weary, and his heart would sicken, at the long succes-
sion of such lines, were it not that here and there, in the open-
ing of some forest glade, on the ridge of some formless plain,
the radiant cross and sparkling towers of a convent spring to-
wards heaven ; a convent with its fringe of verdure, its white
front, its clustering domes and chains. The woods round
Kargopol, the marshes near Lake Ilmen, and the plains of
Moscow, are alive with light and color; Avhile the smaller con-

86 Free Eussia.

vents on river bank and in misty wood, being railed and paint-
ed, look like works of art. One of my sweetest recollections
in a long, dull journey, is that of our descent into the valley of
Siya, when we sighted the great monastery, lying in a watery
dell amidst groves of trees, with the rays of a setting sun on
her golden cross and her shining domes — a hapi^y valley and
a consecrated home ; not to speak of such trifles as the clean
cell and the wholesome bread which a pilgrim finds within
her walls !

The old cities of Great Russia— Novgorod, Moscow, Pskoff,
Vladimir — are much richer in monastic institutions than their
rivals of a later time. For leagues above and leagues below
the ancient capital of Russia, the river Volkhoff, on the banks
of which it stands, is bright with these old mansions of the
Church. Novgorod enriched her suburbs with the splendid
Convents of St. George, St. Cyril, and of St. Anton of Rome.
Moscow lies swathed in a belt and mantle of monastic houses —
Simonoff, Donskoi, Danieloff, Alexiefski, Ivanofski, and many
more ; the belfries and domes of which hghten the wonder-
ful panorama seen from the Sparrow Hills. Pskoff has her glo-
rious Convent of the Catacombs, all but rivalling that of Kief.
Within the walls, these cloisters are no less splendid than
the promise from without. Their altars and chapels are al-
ways fine, the refectories neat and roomy, the sacristies rich in
crosses and priestly robes. Many fine pictures— fine of their
school — adorn the screens and the royal gates. Nearly all pos-
sess portraits of the Mother and Child encased in gold, and
some have lamps and croziers worth their weight in sterling
coin. The greater part of what is visible of Russian wealth
appears to hang around these shrines.

These old monastic houses sprang out of the social life
around them. They were centres of learning, industry, and
art. A convent was a school, and in these schools a special
excellence was sought and won. This stamp has never been
effaced ; and many of the convents still aspire to excellence in
some special craft. The Convent of St. Sergie, near Strelna,
is famed for music ; the New Monastery, near Kherson, for
melons ; the Troitsa, near Moscow, for carving ; the Cata-
combs, near Kief, for service-books.

In the belfry of the old Cathedral of St. Sophia at Novgorod

Black Clergy. 87

you are shown a chamber which Avas formerly used as a treas-
ure-room by the citizens — in fact, as their place of safety and
their tower of strength. You enter it through a series of
dark and difficult passages, barred by no less than twelve iron
doors ; each door to be unfastened by bolt and bar, secured in
the catches under separate lock and key. In this strong place
the burghers kept, in times of peril, their silver plate, their
costly icons, and their ropes of pearl. A robber would not —
and a boyar dared not — force the sanctuary of God. Each
convent was, in this resj^ect, a smaller St. Sophia ; and every
man who laid up gold and jewels in such a bank could sleep
in peace.

" You must understand," said the antiquary of Xovgorod,
as we paddled in our boat down the Volkhoff, " that in an-
cient times a convent was a home — a family house. A man
who made money by trade was minded in his old age to retire
from the city and end his days in peace. In England such a
man would buy him a country-house in the neighborhood of
his native town, in which he would live with his wife and chil-
dren until he died. In a country like Old Russia, with brig-
ands always at his gates, the man who saved money had to
put his wealth under the protection of his church. Selecting
a pleasant site, he would build his house in the name of his
patron saint, adorn it with an altar, furnish it with a kitchen,
dormitory, and cellar, and taking with him his wife, his chil-
dren, and his pope, would set up his tent in that secure and
comfortable place for the remainder of his days on earth."

" Could such a man have his wife and children near him?"

" Xear him ! With him ; not only in his chapel but in his
cell. The convent was his home — his country-house ; and at his
death descended to his son, who had probably become a monk.
In some such fashion, many of the prettiest of these smaller
convents on the Yolkhoff came to be."

Half the convents in Great Russia were established as coun-
try-houses; the other half as deserts — like Solovetsk; and
many a poor fellow toiled like Zosima who has not been bless-
ed with Zosima's fame.

But such a thing is possible, even now ; for Russia has not
yet passed beyond the legendary and heroic periods of her
growth. The latest case is that of the new desert founded

88 Free Kussia.

at Gethseraane, on the plateau of the Troitsa, near Moscoav ;
one of the most singular notes of the present time.

In the year 1803 was born in a log cabin, in a small village
called Prechistoe (Very Clean), near the city of Vladimir, a
male serf, so obscure that his family name has perished. For
many years he lived on his lord's estate, like any other serf,
marrying in his own class (twice), and rearing three strap-
ping sons. At thirty-seven he was freed by his owner ; when
he moved from his village to Troitsa, took the name of Philip,
put on cowl and gown, and dug for himself a vault in the
earth. In this catacomb he spent five years of his life, until
he found a more congenial home among the convent graves,
where he lived for twenty years. Too fond of freedom to
take monastic vows, he never placed himself under convent
rule. Yet seeing, in spite of the proverb, that the hood makes
the monk in Russia, if not elsewhere, he robed his limbs in
coarse serge, girdled his waist with a heavy chain, and walk-
ed to the palace of PhUaret, Metropolite of Moscow, beg-
ged that dignitary's blessing, and craved permission to adopt
his name. Philaret took a fancy to the mendicant ; and from
that time forth the whilom serf from Very Clean was known
in every street as Philaret-oushka — Philaret the Less.

Those grave-yards of the Troitsa lay in a pretty and silent
spot on the edge of a lake, inclosed in dark green woods.
Among those mounds the mendicant made his desert. Buying
a few images and crosses in Troitsa and Gethsemane at two
* kopecks apiece, he carried them into the streets and houses of
Moscow, where he gave them to peoi^le, with his blessing ;
taking, in exchange, such gifts as his penitents pleased ; a ru-
ble, ten rubles, a hundred rubles each. He very soon had mon-
ey in the bank. His images brought more rubles than his
crosses ; for his followers found that his images gave them
luck, while his crosses sent them trouble. Hence a woman to
whom he gave a cross went hom^e with a heavy heart. Un-
like the practice in western countries, no peasant woman adorns
herself with this memorial of her faith ; nor is the cross a
familiar ornament even in mansions of the rich. A priest
. wears a cross ; a spire is crowned by a cross ; but this symbol
of our salvation is rarely seen among the painted and plated
icons in a private house. To " bear the cross " is to suffer

Black Clergy. 89

pain, and no one wishes to suffer pain. One cross a man is
bound to bear — that hung about his neck at the baptismal
font ; but few men care to carry a second weight.

An oddity in dress and speech, Philaret-oushka wore no
shoes and socks, and his greeting in the market was, " I wish
you a merry angel's day," instead of " I wish you well." In
his desert, and in his rambles, he was attended by as strange
an oddity as himself ; one Ivanoushka, John the Less. This
man was never known to sjDeak ; he only sang. He sang in
his cell ; he sang on the road ; he sang by the Holy Gate.
The tone in which he sang reflected his master's mood ; and
the voice of John the Less told many a poor creature whether
Philaret the Less would give her that day an image or a
cross.

This mendicant had much success in merchants' shops.
The more delicate ladies shrank from him with loathing, not
because he begged their money, but because he defiled their
rooms. Though born in Very Clean, this serf was dirtier than
a monk ; but his followers saw in his rusty chains, his grimy
skin, his unkempt hair, so many signs of grace. The women
of the trading classes courted him. A lady told me, that on
calling to see a female friend, the wife of a merchant of the
first guild, she found her kneeling on the floor, and washing
this beggar's feet. Her act was not a form ; for the mendi-
cant wore no shoes, and the streets of Moscow are foul with
mire and hard with flints. One old maid, Miss Seribrikof,
used to boast, as the glory of her life, that she had once been
allowed to wash the good man's sores. Young brides would
beg him to attend their nuptial feasts ; at which he would
" prophesy " as they call it ; hinting darkly at their future of
weal or woe. Sometimes he made a lucky hit. One day, at the
wedding-feast of Gospodin Sorokine, one of the richest men in
Moscow, he turned to the bride and said, " When your feast-
ings are over, you will have to smear your husband with hon-
ey." No one knew what he meant, until three days later,
when Sorokine died ; on which event every one remembered
that honey is tasted at all Russian funerals ; and the words of
Philaret the Less were likened to that Vision of Zosima, which
has since been painted on the pillar in Novgorod the Great.

Madame Loguinof, one of his rich disciples, gave this men-

90 ' Free Eussia.

dicant money enough to build a church and convent, and when
these edifices were raised in the grave-yard of Troitsa his
" desert " was complete.

At the age of sixty-five, this idol of the peojDle passed away.
When his high patron died, Philaret the Less was not so hap-
py in his desert as of yore ; for Innocent, the new Metropo-
lite, was a real missionary of his faith, and not a man to look
with favor on monks in masquerade. Deserting his desert,
the holy man went his way from Troitsa into the province of
Tula, where, in the village of Tcheglovo, he built a second
convent, in which he died about a year ago. The two con-,
vents built by his rusty chains and dirty feet are now occu-
pied by bodies of regular monks.

In these morbid growths of the religious sentiment, the
Black Clergy seek support against the scorn and malice of a
reforming world.

These monks have great advantages on their side. If lib-
eral thought and science are against them, usage and repute
are in their favor. All the high places are in their gift; all
the chief forces are in their hands. The women are with
them ; and the ignorant rustics are mostly with them.
Monks have always attracted the sex from which they fly ;
and every city in the empire has some story of a favorite far
ther followed, like Philaret the Less, by a female crowd.
Yicar Nathaniel was not worshipped in the Nevski Prospect
with a softer flattery than is Bishop Leonidas in the Kremlin
gardens. Comedy but rarely touches these holy men ; yet
one may see in Moscow albums an amusing sketch of this
gifted and fascinating man being lifted into higher place
upon ladies' skirts.

The monks have not only got possession of the spiritual
power ; but they hold in their hands nearly all the sources of
that spiritual power. They have the convents, catacombs,
and shrines. They guard the bones of saints, and are them-
selves the stuff of which saints are made. In the golden
book of the Russian Church there is not one instance of a
canonized parish priest.

These celibate fathers affect to keep the two great keys of
influence in a land Uke Russia — the gift of sacrifice, and the
gift of miracles.

Sacrifice. 91

CHAPTER XVI.

SACEIFICE.

Sacrifice is a cardinal virtue of the Church. To the Rus-
sian mind it is the highest form of good ; ttie surest sign of a
perfect faith. Sacrifice is the evidence of a soul given up to
God.

A child can only be received into the church through sacri-
fice ; and one of the forms in which a man gives himself up
to heaven is that of becoming insane "for the sake of
Christ."

Last year (1868), a poor creature called Ivan Jacovlevitch
died in the Lunatic Asylum in Moscow, after winning for
himself a curious kind of fame. One-half the world pro-
nounced him mad ; a second half respected him as a holy
man. The first half, being the stronger, locked him up, and
kept him under medical watch and ward until he died.

This Ivan, a burgher in the small town of Cherkesovo,
made a "sacrifice" of his health and comfort to the Lord.
By sacred vows, he bound himself never to wash his face and
comb his hair, never to change his rags, never to sit on chair
and stool, never to eat at table, never to handle knife and
fork. In virtue of this sacrifice, he lived like a dog ; crouch-
ing on the floor, and licking up his food with lips and tongue.
When brought into the madhouse, he was washed with soap
and dressed in calico ; but he began to mess himself on pur-
pose ; and his keepers soon gave up the task of trying to
keep him clean.

ISTo saint in the calendar draws such crowds to his shrine
as Ivan Jacovlevitch drew to his chamber in this lunatic's
house,. Not only servant girls and farmers' wives, but wom-
en of the trading classes, came to him daily ; bringing him
dainties to eat, making him presents in money, and telling
him all the secrets of their hearts. Sitting on the ground,
and gobbling up his food, he stared at these visitors, mum-

92 Free Eussia.

bllng some words between his teeth, which his listeners rack-
ed their brains to twist and frame into sense. He rolled the
crumbs of his patties into pills, and when sick persons came
to him to be cured, he put these dirty little balls into their
mouths. This man was said to have become " insane for the
Lord."

The authorities of the asylum lent him a spacious room in
which to receive his guests. They knew that he was mad ;
they knew that a crowded room was bad for him ; but the
public rush was so strong, that they could neither stand upon
their science, nor enforce their rules. The lunatic died
amidst the tears and groans of half the city. When the
news of his death was noised abroad, a stranger would have
thought the city was also mad. Men stopped in the street to
kneel and pray ; women threw themselves on the ground in
grief ; and a crowd of the lower classes ran about the bazars
and markets, crying, " Ivan is dead ! Ivan is dead ! Ah !
w^ho will tell us what to do for ourselves, now Ivan is dead ?"

On my table, as I write these words, lies a copy of the 3Ios-
cow Gazette— the journal which Katkoff edits, in which Sa-
marin writes — containing a proposal, made by the clergy, for
a pubhc monument to Ivan Jacovlevitch, in the village where
this poor lunatic was born !

All monks prefer to live a life of sacrifice; the highest
forms of sacrifice being that of the recluse and the anchorite.

Every branch of the Oriental Church— Armenian, Coptic,
Greek — encourages this form ; but no Church on earth has
given the world so many hermits as the Russ. Her calendar
is full of anchorites, and the stories told of these self-denying
men and women are often past belief. One Sister Maria was
nailed up in a niche at Hotkoff, fed through a hole in the
rock, and lingered in her living tomb twelve years.

On the great plateau of the Troitsa, forty miles from Mos-
cow, stands a monastic village, called Gethsemane. This mo-
nastic village is divided into two parts ; the convent and the
catacombs ; separated by a black and silent lake.

A type of poverty and misery, the convent is built of rough
logs, colored with coarse paint. Not a trace of gold or silver
is allowed, and the only ornaments are of cypress. Gowns of
the poorest serge, and food of the simplest kind, are given to

Sacrifice. 93

the monks. No female is allowed to enter this holy place, ex-
cepting once a year, on the feast of the Virgin's ascent into
heaven. Three women were standing humbly at the gate as
we drove in ; perhaps wondering why their sex should be
shut out of Gethsemane, since their Lord was not betrayed in
the garden by a female kiss !

Across the black lake lie the catacombs, cut o££ from the
convent by a gate and fence ; for into these living graves it is
lawful for a female to descend. Deep down from the light of
day, below the level of that sombre lake, these catacombs ex-
tend. We light each man his taper, as we stand above the
narrow opening into the vaults. A monk, first crossing his
breast and muttering his pass-words in an unknown tongue,
goes down the winding stairs. We follow slowly, one by one
in silence; shading the light and holding to the wall. A
faint smell fills our nostrils ; a dull sound greets our ears ;
heavily comes our breath in the damp and fetid air. The
tapers faint and flicker in the gloom. Gaining a passage, we
observe some grated windows, narrow holes, and iron-bound
doors. These openings lead into cells. The roof above is wet
with slime, the floor is foul with crawling, nameless things.

" Hush !" drones the monk, as he creeps past some grated
window and some iron-clad door, as though he were afraid that
we should wake the dead.

" What is this hole in the stone ?" The monk stops short
and waves his lurid Hght: "A cell; a good man lies here;
hush ! his soul is now with God !"

" Dead ?"

" Yea — dead to the world."

" How long has he been here ?"

" How long ? Eleven years and more."

Passing this living tomb with a shiver, we catch the boom
of a bell, and soon emerge from the nai*row passage into a tiny
church. A lamp is bixrning before the shrine ; two monks are
kneeling with their temples on the floor ; a priest is singing in
a low, dull tone. The fittings of this church are all of brass;
for pine and birch would rot into paste in a single year. Be-
yond the chapel we come to the holy well, the water of which
is said to be good for body and soul. It is certainly earthy to
the taste.

94 Free Kussia.

On coming into the light of day, Av^e question the father
sharjily as to that recluse who is said to have lived eleven
years behind the iron-clad door ; and learn without surprise
that he comes out from time to time, to ring the convent-bell,
to fetch in wood, and hear the news ! We learn that a man
retired with his son into one of these catacombs ; that he re-
mained in his grave — so to sj^eak — two years and a half, and
then came out completely broken in his health. My eminent
Russian friend, Professor Kapoustin, turns to me and says,
" When our country was covered with forests, when our best
road was a rut, and our villages were all shut in, a man who
wished for peace of mind might wall himself up in a cell ; but
the country is now open, monks read newspapers, travellers
come and go, and the recluse likes to hear the news and see
the light of day."

Instead of living in their catacombs, the monks now turn a
penny by showing them to pilgrims, at the price of a taper,
and by selling to visitors the portraits of monks and nuns who
lived in the sturdier days of their church.

The spirit of sacrifice takes other and milder forms. In the
court-yards of Solovetsk one sees a strange creature, dressed
in rags, fed on garbage, and lodged in gutters, who belongs to
the monastic order, without being vowed as a regular monk.
He lives by sufferance, not by right. He offers himself up as
a daily sacrifice. He follows, so to speak, the calling of abject-
ness ; and makes himself an example of the Avorthlessness of
earthly things. This strange being is much run after by the
poorer pilgrims, who regard him as a holy man ; and he is
noticeable as a type of what the Black Clergy think meritorious
in the Christian life.

Father Nikita, the name by which this man is known, is a
dwarf, four feet ten inches high, with thin, gray beard, black
face, and rat-like eyes. He never pollutes his skin with water
and soap ; for what is man that he should foster pride of the
flesh ? His garb is a string of rags and shreds ; for he spurns
the warmer and more decent habit of a monk. Instead of go-
ing to the store when he needs a frock, he crawls into the
waste-closet, where he begs as a favor that the father having
charge of the castaway clothes will give him the tatters which
some poor brother has thrown aside. A room is left for his

Sacrifice. 95

use in the cloister ; but a bench of Av^ood and a pillow of straw
are things too good for dust and clay ; and in token of his un-
worthiness, he lives on the open quay and sleeps in the con-
vent yard. Nobody can persuade him to sit down to the com-
mon meal ; the sup of sour quass, the pound of black bread,
the morsel of salt cod being far too sumptuous food for him ;
but when the meal is over, and the crumbs are swejDt up, he
will slink into the pantry, scrape into one dish the slops and
bones, and make a repast of what peasants and beggars have
thrown away.

He will not take his place in church ; he will not pass
through the Sacred Gates. When service is going on, he
crouches in the darkest corner of the church, and listens to the
prayers and chants with his head upon the ground. He likes
to be spurned and buffeted by the crowd. A servant of every
one, he is only too happy if folk will order hma about ; and
when he can find a wretch so poor and dirty that eveiy one
else shuns him, he will take that dirty wretch to be his lord.
In winter, when the snow lies deep on the ground, he will sleep
in the open yard ; in summer, when the heat is fierce, he will
expose his shaven crown to the sun. He loves to be scorned,
and spit upon, and robbed. Like all his class, he is fond of
money ; and this love of dross he turns into his sharpest dis-
cipline of soul. Twisting plaits of birch-bark into creels and
crates, he vends these articles to boatmen and pilgrims at two
kopecks apiece ; ties the copper coins in a filthy rag ; and then
creeps away to hide his money under a stone, in the hope that
some one will watch him and steal it when he is gone.

The first monk who held the chair of abjectness in Solo-
vetsk, before Nikita came in, was a miracle of self-denial, and
his death was commemorated by an act of the rarest grace.
Father Nahum is that elder and Avorthier sacrifice to heaven.

Nahum is said to have been more abject in manner, more
self-denying in habit, than Nikita ; being a person of higher
order, and having more method in his scheme of sacrifice.
He abstained from the refuse of fish, as too great a delicacy
for sinful men. He liked to sleep in the snow. He was only
too happy to lie down at a beggar's door. Once, when he
slept outside the convent gates all night, some humorous broth-
er suggested that perhaps he had been looking out for girls ;

96 Fkee Eussia.

and on hearing of this ribald jest he stripped himself nearly-
naked, poked a hole in the ice, and sat down in the frozen lake
until his feet were chilled to the bone. A wing of the con-
vent once took fire, and the monks began to run about with
pails ; but Nahuui rolled a ball of snow in his palms and threw
it among the flames ; and as the tongues lapped higher and
higher, he ran to the church, threw himself on the floor, and
begged the Lord to put them out. Instantly, say the monks,
the fire died down. An archimandrite saw him groping in a
garden for potatoes, tearing up the roots with his fingers.
" That is cold work, is it not, Nahum ?" asked his kindly chief.
" Humph !" said the monk ; " try it." When the present
emperor came to Solovetsk, and every one was anxious to do
him service, Nahum walked up to him with a wooden cuj),
half f uU of dirty water, saying, " Drink ; it is good enough."

AVhen this professor of abjectness died, he was honored by
his brethren with a special funeral, inside the convent gates.
He was buried in the yard, beneath the cathedral dome;
where all day long, in tho pilgrim season, a crowd of people
may be seen about the block of granite- which marks his
grave ; some praying beside the stone, -as though he Avere al-
ready a " friend of God," while others are listening to the
stories told of this uncanonized saint. Only one other monk
of Solovetsk has ever been distinguished by such a mark of
grace. Time — and time only — now seems wanting to Father
Nahum's glory. In another generation — if the Black Clergy
hold their own — Nahum of Solovetsk, canonized already by
the popular voice of monks and pilgrims, will be taken up in
St. Isaac's Square, and raised by imperial edict to his heavenly
seat.

CHAPTER XVII.

MIKACLES,

Yet the gift of miracles is greater than the gift of sacri-
fice. The Black Clergy stand out for miracles ; not in a mys-
tical sense, but in a natural sense ; not only in times long past,
but in the present hour ; not only in the dark and in obscure
hamlets, but in populous places and in the light of day.

Miracles. 97

At Kief a friend drives me out to the caves of Anton and
Feodosie, where we find some men and women standing by
the gates, expecting the father who keeps the keys to bring
them and unlock the doors. As these living pilgrims occupy
ns more than the dead anchorets, we join this party, pay our
five koj)ecks, light our taj^ers, and descend with them the
rocky stairs into the vault. Candle in hand, an aged monk
goes forward, muttering in the gloom ; stopping for an in-
stant, here and there, to show us, lying on a ledge of rock,
some cofiin mufiied in a pall. We thread a mile of lanes, sa-
luting saint on saint, and twice or thrice we come into dwarf
chapels, in each of which a lamp burns dimly before a shrine.
The women kneel ; the men cross themselves and pray. Mov-
ing forward in the dark, we come upon a niche in the wall,
covered by a curtain and a glass door, on the ledge of which
stands a silver dish, a little water, and a human skull. Our
pUgrims cross themselves and mutter a voiceless prayer,
while the aged monk lays down his taper and unlocks the
door. A woman sinks on her knees before the niche, turns uj)
her face, and shuts her eyes, Avhile the father, dipping a quill
into the water, drops a little of the fluid on her eyelids. One
by one, each pilgrim undei-goes this rite ; and then, on rising
from his knees, lays down an offering of a few kopecks on the
ledge of rock.

" What does this ceremony mean ?" I ask the father.
" Mean ?" says he : "a mystery — a miracle ! This skull is
the relic of a holy man whose eye had suffered from a blow.
He called upon the Most Pure Mother of God ; she heard his
cry of pain ; and in her jjity she cured him of his wound."

" What is the name of that holy man ?" — " We do not
know."

" When did he live and die ?"— " We do not know."

" Was he a monk of Kief ?" — " Pie was ; and after he died
his skull was kept, because his fame Avas great, and every one
with pain in his eyes came hither to obtain relief."

Not one of our fellow-pilgrims has sore eyes ; but who, as
the father urges, knows what the morrow may have in store ?
Bad eyes may come ; and who would not like to insure him-
self forever against pain and blindness at the cost of five ko-
pecks ?

V

98 Free Eussia.

Such miracles are performed, by the bones of saints in cities
less holy and old than Kief.

Seraphim, a merchant of Kursk, abandoned his wife, his
children, and his shop, to become a monk. Wandering to
the cloister called the Desert of Sarof, in the province of Tam-
bof, he dug for himself a hole in the ground, in which he lay
down and slept. Some robbers came to his cave, where they
beat and searched him; but, on finding his pockets empty,
they knew that he must be a holy man. From that lucky day
his fame spread rapidly abroad ; and people came to see him
from far and near ; bringing presents of bread, of raiment,
and of money ; all of which he took into his cave, and doled
out afterwards to the poor, A second window had to be cut
into his cell; at one he received gifts, at the other he dis-
pensed them. His desert became a populous place, and the
Convent of Sarof grew iuto vast repute.

Seraphim founded a second desert for women, ten miles
distant from his own. A gentleman gave him a piece of
ground; merchants sent him money; for his favor was by
that time reckoned as of higher value than house and land.
Lovely and wealthy women drove to see him, and to stay
with him ; entering into the desert which he formed for them,
and living apart from the world, without taking on their heads
the burden of conventual vows. At length a miracle was an-
nounced. A lamp which hung in front of a picture of the
Virgin died out while Seraphim was kneeling on the gi'ound ;
the chapel grew dai-k and the face of the Virgin faint ; the
pilgrims were much alarmed ; when, to the surprise of every
one who saw it, a hght came out from the picture and re-ht
the lamp ! A second miracle soon followed. One day, a
crowd of poor people came to the desert for bread, when Ser-
aphim had little in his cell to give. Counting his loaves, he
saw that he had only two ; and how was he to divide two
loaves among all those hungry folk ? He lifted up his voice
— and lo ! not two, but twenty loaves were standing on his
board. From that time wonders were reported every year
from Sarof ; cures of all kinds ; and the court in front of Ser-
aphim's cell was thronged by the lame and blind, the deaf and ■
dumb, by day and night.

Seraphim died in 1S33 ; yet miracles are said to be effected

Miracles. 99

at his tomb to this very hour. Already called a saint, the
people ask his canonization from the Church. Every new
Emperor makes a saint; as in Turkey every new Sultan
builds a mosque ; and Seraphim is fixed upon by the public
voice as the man whom ^Vlexander the Third will have to
make a saint.

One Motovilof, a landowner in the province of Penza, lame,
unable to walk, applied for help to Seraphim, Avho promised
the invahd, on conditions, a certain cure. Motovilof was to
become a friend of Sarof ; a supporter of the female desert.
Yielding to these terms, he was told to go down to Voronej,
and to make his reverence at the shrine of Metrof anes, a local
saint, on which he would find himself free from pain. Moto-
vilof went to Yoronej, and came back cured. With grateful
heart he gave Seraphim a patch of land for his female desert ;
and then, being busy with his affairs, he gradually forgot his
pilgrimage and his miraculous cure. The pain came back
into his leg; he could hardly walk; and not until he sent a
supply of bread and clothes to Seraph ingi was he restored in
health. Not once, but many times, the worldly man was
warned to keep his pledge ; a journey to the desert became a
habit of his life ; until he fell into love for one of Seraphim's
fair penitents, and taking her home from her refuge, made
that recluse his wife.

More noticeable still is the story of Tikhon, sometime Bish-
op of Voronej, now a recognized saint of the Orthodox Church.
Tikhon is the official saint of the present reign ; the living Em-
peror's contribution to the heavenly ranks.

Timothy Sokolof, son of a poor reader in a village church,
was born (in 1724) in that province of Novgorod which has
given to Russia most of her popular saints. The reader's
family was large, his income small, and Timothy was sent to
work on a neighbor's farm. Toiling in the fields by day, in
the sheds by night ; sleeping httle, eating less ; he yet con-
trived to learn how to read and write. Sent from this farm
to a school, just opened in Novgorod, he toiled so patiently at
his tasks, and made such progress in his studies, that on fin-
ishing his course he was appointed master of the schooL

Ilis heart was not in this woi'k of teaching. From his cra-
dle he had been fond of singing hymns and hearing mass, of

100 Fkee Russia.

being left alone with liis books and thoughts, of flying from
tlie face of man and the allurements of the world. A vision
shaped for him his future coui-se. " When I was yet a teach-
er in the school," he said to a friend in after life, " I sat up
whole nights, reading and thinking. Once, when I was sit-
ting up in May, the air being very soft, the sky very bright, I
left my cell, and stood under the starry dome, admiring the
lights, and thinking of our eternal life. Heaven opened to
my sight — a vision such as human w^ords can never paint !
My heart was filled with joy, and from that hour I felt a pas-
sionate longing to quit the world."

A few years after he took the cowl and changed the name
of Timothy for Tikhon, he was raised from his humble cell to
the episcopal bench ; first in Novgorod, afterwards at Yo-
ronej ; the second a missionary see ; the province of Yoronej
lying close to the Don Kozak country and the Tartar steppe.

The people of this district were lawless tribes ; Kozaks,
Kalmuks, Malo-Russ ; a tipsy, idle, vagabond crew ; the clergy
worse, it may be, than their flocks. Voronej had no schools ;
the pojDes could hardly read ; the services were badly sung and
said. All classes of the people lived in sin. Tikhon began a
patient wrestle with these disorders. Opening with the
priests, and with the schools, he put an end to flogging in the
seminaries ; in order, as he said, to raise the standing of a
firiest, and cause the student to respect himself. This change
was but a sign of things to come. By easy steps he won his
clergy to live like priests; to drink less, to pray more ; and
generally to act as ministers of God. In two years he jiurged
the schools and purified the Church.

No less care was given to lay disorders. Often he had to
be plain in speech ; but such was the reverence felt for him
by burgher and peasant that no one dared to disregard his
voice. " You must do so, if Tikhon tells you," they would
say to each other ; " if not, he will complain of you to God."
He dressed in a coarse robe ; he ate plain food ; he sent the
wine untouched from his table to the sick. He was the poor
man's friend ; and only waited on the rich when he found no
wretched ones at his gates. The power of Tikhon lay in his
faultless life, in his tender tones, and in his loving heart.
" Want of love," he used to urge, " is the cause of all our

Miracles. 101

misery ; had we more lore for our brothers, pain and grief
■would be more easy to bear ; love soothes away all grief and
pain."

Two years in Novgorod, five years in Voronej, he spent in
these gracious labors, till the longing of his heart for solitude
grew too sti'ong. Laying down his mitre, he retired from his
palace in Yoronej to the convent of Zadonsk, a httle town on
the river Don, where he gave up his time to writing tracts
and visiting the poor. These labors were of highest use ; for
Tikhon was among the first (if not the first of all) to write in
favor of the serf. Fifteen volumes of his works are printed ;
fifteen more are said to lie in manuscript ; and some of these
works have gone through fifty editions from the Russian press.

Tikhon's great merit as a writer lies in the fact that he fore-
saw, prepai'ed, and urged emancipation of the serfs.

For fifteen years he lived the life of a holy man. As a
friend of serfs, he one day went to the house of a prince, in
the district of Voronej, to point out some wrong which they
were suffering on his estate, and to beg him, for the sake of
Jesus and Mary, to be tender with the poor. The prince got
angry with his guest for putting the thing so plainly into
words ; and in the midst of some sharp speech between them,
struck him in the face. Tikhon rose up and left the house ;
but when he had walked some time, he began to see that he —
no less than his host — was in the wrong. This man, he said
to himself, has done a deed of which, on cooling down, he will
feel ashamed. Who has caused him to do that wrong ? " It
was my doing," sighed the reprover, turning on his heel, and
going straight back into the house. Falling at the prince"'s
feet, Tikhon craved his pardon for having stirred him into
wrath, and caused him to commit a sin. The man was so as-
tonished, that he knelt down by the monk, and, kissing his
hands, implored his forgiveness and his benediction. From
that hour, it is said, the prince was another man ; noticeable
through all the province of Yoronej for his kindness to the
serfs.

Tikhon lived into his eightieth year. Before he passed
away, he told the brethren of his convent he would live until
such a day and then depart. He died, as he had told them
he should die — on the day foreseen, and in the midst of his

102 Free Eussia.

weeping fi-iends. From the day of his funeral, Ins shrine in
Zadonsk was visited by an ever-increasing crush ; for cures
of many kinds were wrought ; the sick recovered, the lame
walked home, the blind saw, the crooked became straight.
A thousand voices claimed the canonization of this friend of
serfs ; until the reigning emperor, struck by this appeal, in-
vited the Holy Governing Synod to conduct the inquiries
which jDrecede the canonization of a Russian saint.

The commission sat ; the miracles were proved ; and then
the tomb was opened. 'Out from the coffin came a scent of
flowers; the flesh was pure and sweet; and the act of canoni-
zation was decreed and signed in 1861, the emancipation year.
Tikhon of Zadonsk is the emancipation saint.

Yet, according to the Black Clergy, the newest and the
greatest miracle of modern times is the Virgin's defense of
Solovetsk against the Anglo-French squadron in 1854.

The wardrobe of Solovetsk contains the chief treasures of
the cloister ; old charters and letters ; original grants of lands;
the rescript of Peter; manuscript lives of Savatie and Zosi-
ma; service-books, richly bound in golden plates; Pojarski's
sword ; cups, lamps, crosses, candlesticks in gold and silver ;
but the treasure of treasures is the evidence of that stupen-
dous miracle wrought by the Most Pure Mother of God.

On the centre stand, under a glass case, strongly locked, lie
an English shell and two round-shot. They are carefully in-
scribed. A reliquary in a closet holds a dozen bits of brass,
the rent fusees of exploded shells. A number of prints are
sold to the devout, in which the English gun-boats are moor-
ed under the convent wall, so near that men might easily have
leaped on shore. Among this mass of evidence is a new and
splendid ornamental cup ; the gift of Russia to Solovetsk — in
memory of the day when human help had failed, and " the
convent that endureth forever" was saved by the Virgin Moth-
er of God.

A scoffer here and there may smile. " Savatie ! Zosima !"
laughed a Russiaii cynic in my face ; " you English made the
fortune of these saints. How so ? You see a peasant has
but two notions in his pate — the Empire and the Church ; a
power of the flesh and a power of the spirit. Now, see what
you have done. You wage war upon us; you send your fleets

The Great Miracle. 103

into the Black Sea and into the White Sea; in the first to fight
against the Empire, in the second to fight against the Church.
In one sea, you win ; in the other sea, you lose. Sevastopol
falls to your arms ; while Solovetsk drives away your ships.
The arm of the spirit is seen to be stronger than the arm of
flesh. What then ? ' Heaven,' says the rustic to his neigh-
bor, as they dawdle home from church, * is mightier than the
Tsar.' For fifty years to come our superstitions will lie on
English heads !"

The tale of that miracle, told me on the spot, will sound in
some ears like a piece of high comedy, in others like a chapter
from some ancient and forgotten book. A dry dispatch from
Admiral Ommaney contains the little that we know of our
" Operations in the White Sea ;" the next chapter gives the
story, as they tell it on the other side.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GKEAT MIRACLE.

So soon as news arrived in the winter palace that an Eng-
lish fleet was under steam for the Polar seas, the War Oftico
set to work in the usual way ; sending out arms and men ;
such arms and men as could be found and spared in tliese
northern towns. Six old siege-guns, fit for a museum, were
shipped from Archangel to the convent, with five artillerymen,
and fifty troopers of the line, selected from the Invalid Corj)S.
An officer came with these forces to conduct the defense.

Just as the English shij^s were entering on their task this
officer died (.lune, 1854) ; no doubt by the hand of God, in
order to rebuke the pride of man, while adding fresh lustre to
the auriol of His saints. ITie arm of flesh having failed, the
fathers threw themselves on the only power that can never
fail.

Father Alexander, then the Archimandrite, ordered a series
of services to be held in the several chapels within the walls.
A special office was appointed for Sunday, with a separate
appeal to Heaven for guidance ; first in the name of the Most

10-i Free Russia.

Sweet Infant Jesus; afterwards in that of the Most Pure
Mother of God. Midnight services were also given ; the ef-
fect of which is said to have been great and strange ; firing
the monks with a new and wonderful spirit of confidence in
their cause. The Archimandrite sang mass in person before
the tombs of Savatie and Zosima, in the crypt of the cathe-
dral church, and also before the miracle-working picture of
the Virgin brought by Savatie to his desert. This picture —
so important in the story — came from Greece. The service
sung before it filled the monks with gladness; warmth and
comfort flowed from the Madonna's face ; and her adorers felt
themselves conquerors, in her name, before the English war-
ships hove in sight.

In their first trouble, the copes and missals, charters and
jewels, had been sent away into the inland towns. This act
of doubt occurred before the officer died, and the monks had
taken upon themselves the burden of defense. To those who
carried away the cups and crosses, robes and books, the Arch-
imandrite gave his blessing and his counsel. " Know," he
said to thera at parting, " that, whether you be on sea or land,
every Friday we shall be fasting and praying for you ; do
you the same ; and God will preserve the things which be-
long to His service, and which you are carrying away ; follow
my commands, and come back to me in a better time, sound
in health, with the things of which you go in charge." When
news came in that English ships were cruising off the bar of
Archangel, some of the brethren fainted ; " left by the Em-
peror," they sighed, " to be made a sacrifice for his sins."
Ten days before the squadron came in sight, the Archiman-
drite held a service in his church, to encourage these feeble
souls ; and when his prayers were ended, he addressed them
thus : " Grieve not that the defense seems weak while the
foe is strong. Rely upon our Lord, upon His Most Pure
Mother, u^ion the two excellent saints Avho have promised that
this convent shall endure forever. Jesus will perform a mir-
acle, for their sake, such as the world has never seen." A ray
of comfort stole into their hearts ; and rolling out barrels of
pitch and tar, they smeared the wooden shingles of wall and
tower, filled pails of water in readiness to drench out fires, and
took down from the convent armory the rusty pikes and bills

The Great Miracle. 105

which had been lying up since the attack of Swedish ships in
the days of Peter the Great.

A hundred texts were found to show that these old weap-
ons could be used again, even as the arms of David were used
once more by the Lion of Judah in defense of Solomon's
shrine. Young children came into the monastery from Kem
and Suma, vowed by their fathers to the cause oi God ; and
many old pikes and bills were put into these infant hands.
" Tlie fire of your ships," said one of the monks, " did not
frighten these innocents, who played with the shells as though
they had been harmless toys." Not a child was hurt.

When the fleet was signalled from the outlooks, Alexander
spoke to his brethren after meat : " Have a good heart," he
cried ; " we are not weak, as we appear ; for God is on our
side. If we were saved by an army, where would be our
credit ? With the soldiery, with the world ! What would
be our gain ? But if by prayer alone we drive the squadron
from our shores, the glory will belong to our convent and our
faith. Have a good heart ! Slava Bogu — Glory to God !"

On Tuesday morning (July 18th, 1854) the watchers sig-
nalled two frigates, which were rounding Beluga Point : the
Archimandrite proclaimed a three days' fast. The two frig-
ates anchored seven miles from the shore : the Achimandrite
ordered the convent bell to toll for a special service to the
Most Pure Mother of God. Like a Hebrew king, he took off
his gorgeous robes, and, humbhng himself before the fathers,
read a prayer in front pf the tombs of Savatie and Zosima,
and, taking down the miraculous picture of the Virgin,
marched with it in procession round the walls. Then — but
not till then — the frigates sailed away.

As the ships steamed off towards Kem, it was feared they
might still come back ; and Ensign Xiconovitch, commanding
the Company of Invalids, went out to survey the shores, drag-
ging two three-pounder guns through the sand ; while many
of the pilgrims and workmen offered their services as scouts.
Niconovitch built a battery of sods and sand, behind which
he trained his guns ; and eight small pieces were laid upon
the towers and walls, after which the fathers fell once more
to prayer.

Next day a trail of smoke was seen in the summer sky.

106 Free Eussia.

The two ships, soon known to them as the "Brisk" and the
"Miranda," steamed into the bay. The "Brisk," say the
monks, was the first to sj^eak, and she opened her parley with
a rattling shot. Standing on the quay, the Archimandrite
was nearly struck by a ball, and his people, frightened at the
crashing roar, ran up into the convent yard, and tried to close
behind them the Sacred Gates.

A petty officer, one Drushlevski, having charge of ten men
and a gun in the Weaver's Tower, returned the fire ; on which
the English frigate is said to have opened her broadside on
the tower and wall. Drushlevski took up her challenge ; but
with aim and prudence, having very little powder in his casks.
The " Brisk," they say, fired thirty rounds, while the officer in
the Weavei-'s Tower discharged his gun three times. The
English then sheered off ; a shot from the convent gun hav-
ing struck her side, and killed a man.

That night "was spent in joy and prayer. The Archiman-
drite kissed Drushlevski, and gave his blessing to every gun-
ner in the Weaver's Tower. When night came on — the sum-
mer night of the Frozen Sea — the frigates were out of sight ;
but no one felt secure, and least of all Drushlevski, that this
triumph of the cross was yet comjDlete. Xot a soul in the
convent slept.

Dawn brought them one of the holiest festivals of the Rus-
sian year ; Thursday, July 20th, the feast of our Lady of Ka-
san ; a day on which no plough is driven, no mill is opened, no
school is kept, in any part of Russia, from the White Sea to
the Black. Matins were sung, as usual, in the Cathedral
Church at half-past two ; the Archimandrite steadily going
through his chant, as though the peril were not nigh. Te
Deum was just being finished, when a boat came ashore from
the " Brisk," carrying a white flag, and bringing a summons
for the convent to yield her keys. The letter was in English,
accompanied by a bad translation, in which the word for
" squadron of ships," was rendered by the Russian term for
squadrons of horse. Consulting with his monks — who laughed
in good heai'ty mood at the idea of being set upon by cavalry
fi'om the sea — the Archimandrite told the messenger to say his
answer should be sent to the "Brisk" by an officer of his own.

Two " insolent conditions " were imposed by the admiral :

The Great Miracle. 107

(1.) The commander was to yield his sword in person; (2.)
The garrison were to become prisoners of war. Ommanney's
letter informed the fathers that if a gun were fired from the
wall, his bombardment would begin at once ; alleging in ex-
planation that on the previous day a gun in the convent had
opened on his ship.

One Soltikoff, a pilgrim, carried the Archimandrite's answer
to the "Brisk:" — a proud refusal to give up his keys. De-
nying that the convent had opened fire on the English boat,
he said the first shot came from the frigate, and the convent
simply replied to it in self-defense. The paper was unsigned ;
the monk declaring that as a man of peace he could not write
his name on a document treating of blood and death.

Admiral Ommanney told the pilgrim there was nothing
more to say; the bombardment would begin at once; and the
convent would be swept from the earth. Soltikoff asked for
time, and Ommanney offered him three hours' grace. It was
now five in the morning, and the admiral gave the fathers
until eight o'clock ; but on the pilgrim saying the time was
short, Ommanney is said to have sworn a great oath, and less-
ened his term of grace three-quarters of an hour. He kept
liis oath; the bombardment opened at a quarter to eight
o'clock of that holy day — inscribed to Our Lady of Kazan —
our Lady of Victory ; the first shell flying over the convent
shingles almost as soon as Soltikoff reached the Sacred Gates.

On the English frigates opening fire, the bell in the court-
yard tolled the monks to prayer. Shot, shell, grenade and
cartridge rained on the walls and domes ; yet the services
went on all day; a hurricane of fire without; an agony of
prayer within! While the people were on their knees, a
shell struck the cathedral dome — the rent of which is piously
preserved — and, tearing through the wooden framework,
dashed down the ceiling on the supplicants' heads. The raft-
ers were on fire ; the church was suddenly filled with smoke.
A sacred image was grazed and singed. The Avindows
cracked ; the doors flew open ; the buildings reeled and shiv-
. ered ; and the terrified people fell with their faces on the
stones. One man only kept his feet. Standing before the
royal gates, the Archimandrite cried : " Stay ! stay ! Be not
afraid, the Lord will guard His own !" The monks and pil-

108 Free Eussia.

grims, lifting up their eyes, beheld the old man standing be-
fore his altar, quiet and erect, with big tears rolling down his
cheeks. They sj^rang to their feet ; they ran to fetch water ;
they put out the flames ; they swept of£ the wreck of dust and
rafters ; and when the floor was cleansed, they sank on their
knees and bowed their heads once more in prayer.

When mass was over, three poor women remained in the
cathedral on their knees ; a shell came through the roof, and
burst ; on which the poor things crawled towards the shrines
where men were i^raying, and women are not allowed to come.
A good pope let them in, and suffered them to pray with the
men ; an act which the monks regard as one of the highest
wonders of that mii-aculous day.

A jJetty ofiicer named Ponomareff occupied with his gun a
spit of rock, from which he could tease the frigates, and draw
upon himself no little of their Avrath. Every shot from the
" Miranda " splashed the mire about his men, who were often
buried, thoiigh they were not killed that day. Leaping to his
feet, and shaking the dirt from his clothes, Ponomareff stood
to his gun, until he was called away. He and three other
men crejDt through the stones and trees, to places far apart ;
whence they discharged their carbines, and ran away into the
scrub, after drawing upon these points a rattle of shot and
shell. At length he was recalled. " It is a sad- day for the
monastery," sighed the gunner, " but we are willing to die with
the saints."

Services were sung all day in front of the shrines of Savatie
and Zosima. Once a shot struck the altar; the po^^e shrank
back from his desk, and the people fell on their faces. Every
one supposed that his hour was come, and many cried out in
their fear for the bread and wine. Father Varnau, the con-
fessor, took his seat, confessed the people, and gave them the
sacrament. Alexander was the first to confess his sins, and
make up his account Avith God. The elders followed ; then
the lay monks, pilgrims, soldiers, women; and when all were
shriven, the body of penitents pressed around the shrines of
Philip, Savatie, Zosima, and the Mother of God.

A little after noon, the convent bells in the yard Avere tolled,
the monks and pilgrims gathered on the wall, and lines of
procession were ordered to be formed. The monks stood

The Great Miracle. 109

first, the pilgrims next, the "women and children last ; and
when they were all got ready to march, the Archimandrite
took down from the screen beside his altar the Miraculous
Virgin and the principal cross ; and placing himself in front
of his people, with the cross in his right hand, the Virgin in
his left, conducted them round the ramparts under fire. He
waved his cross, and blessed the pilgrims Avith the Miraculous
Virgin as he strode along. The great bell tolled, the monks
and pilgrims sang a psalm. Shot and shell rained overhead ;
the boulders trembled in the wall; the shingles cracked and
sj^lit on the roof. Near the corner tower by the Holy Lake
the procession came to a halt. A shell had struck the wind-
mill, setting the fans on fire. Pealing their psalm, and calling
on their saints, they waited till the flames died down, and
then resumed their march. A shot came dashing through the
ramj)art ; splintering the logs and planks in their very midst,
and cutting the line of procession into head and heel. " Ad-
vance !" cried the Archimandrite, waving his cross and pic-
ture, and the people instantly advanced. On reaching the
Weaver's Tower, from which the shot of destiny had been
fired the previous day, the Archimandrite, calling the monk-
Gennadie to his side, gave him the cross, with orders to carry
it ujD into the tower, and let the gunners kiss the image of our
Lord. While Gennadie was absent on this errand, the Archi-
mandrite showed the monks and pilgrims that the convent
doves Avere not fluttered in their nests by the English guns.

A miracle I When the procession moved from the Weaver's
Tower, they came near some open ground, which they were
obliged to cross, under showers of shot. No man of flesh and
blood — unless protected from on high — could pass through
that fire unscathed. But now was the time to try men's faith.
A moment only the procession paused ; the Archimandrite,
holding up his miraculous picture of the Mother of God, ad-
vanced into the cloud of dust and smoke ; the people jicaled
their psalm ; and the shells and balls from the English ships
Avere seen to curve in their flight, to whirl over dome and
tower, and come down splashing into the Holy Lake ! Every
eye saw that miracle ; and every heart confessed the Most
Pure Mother of God.

The frigates then drew off, and went their way ; to be seen

110 Free Kussia.

from the Avatch-towers of the sacred isles no more ; vanquish-
ed and put to shame j though visibly not by the hand of man.
Not a soul in the convent had been hurt ; though hurricanes
of brass and iron had been fired from the English decks.

A Norwegian named Harder, a visitor by chance to Solo-
vetsk, was so much struck by this miraculous defense, that he
cried in the convent yard^ " How great is the Russian God !"
and begged to be admitted a member of their Church.

The news of this attack by an English Admiral on Solovetsk
was carried into every part of Russia, and the effect which it
produced on the Russian mind may be conceived by any one
who Avill take the pains to imagine how he would feel on hear-
ing reports from Palestine that a Turkish Pasha had opened
fire on the dome and cross of the Holy Sepulchre. Shame,
astonishment, and fury filled the land, until the further news
arrived that this abominable raid among the holy graves and
shrines had come to naught. Since that year of miracles,
young and old, rich and poor, have come to regard a journey
to Solovetsk as only second in merit to a voyage to Bethlehem
and the tomb of Christ. Peasants set the fashion, which Em-
perors and grand dukes are taking uj?. Alexander the Second
has made a pilgrimage to these holy isles ; his brother Con-
stantine has done the same ; and two of his sons will make
the trip next year. The Empress, too, is said to have made a
vow, that if Heaven restores her strength, she will pay a visit
to Savatie's shrine.

Some people think these visits of the imperial race are due,
not only to the wish to lead where they might otherwise have
to follow, but to matters connected with that mystery of a
buried grand duke which lends so dark a fame to the convent
in the Frozen Sea.

CHAPTER XIX.

A COXVENT SPECTRE.

A LA^JD alive with goblins and sorceries, in which every
monk sees visions, in which every Avoman is thought to be a
witch, presents the j^roper scenery for such a legend as that
of the convent spectre, called the Spirit of the Frozen Sea.

A Convent Spectre. Ill

Faitli in llie existence of this phantom is widely spread. I
have met with evidences of this faith not only in the north-
ern seas, but on the Volga, in hamlets of the Ukraine, and
among old believers in Moscow, Novgorod, and Kief. All the
Ruthenians, most of the Don Kozaks, and many of the Poles,
give credit to this tale, in either a spiritualized or physical
form.

Rufin Pietrowskij the Pole who escaped from his Siberian
mine, and, crossing the Ural Mountains, dropped down the
river Dvina on a raft, and got as near to Solovetsk as Onega
Point, reports the spectre as a fact, and offers the explanation
which was given of it by his fellow-pilgrims. He says it is
not a ghost, but a living man. Other and later Avriters than
Pietrowski hint at such a mystery ; but the tale is one of
which men would rather whisper in corners than prate in
books.

" You have been to Solovetsk ?" exclaimed to me a native
of Kalatch, on the Don, a man of wit and sj^irit. " May I ask
whether you saw any thing there that struck you much ?"

" Yes, many things ; the convent itself, the farms and gar-
dens, the dry-dock, the fishing-boats, the salt-pits, the tombs
of saints."

" Ah ! yes, they would let you see all those things ; but
they would not let you go into their secret prison."

" Why not ?" I said, to lead him on.

" They have a prisoner in that building whom they dare
not show."

The same thing happened to me several times, with varia-
tions of time and place.

Some boatman from the Lapland ports, while striving, in
the first hard days of winter, with the floes of ice, is driven
beneath the fortress curtain, where he sees, on looking up, in
the faint light of dusk, a venerable figure passing behind a
loop-hole in the wall ; his white hair cut, which proves that
he is not a monk ; his eyes upraised to heaven ; his hands
clasped fervently, as though he were in prayer ; his whole ap-
pearance that of a man appealing to the justice of God
against the tyranny of man. A sentry passes the loop-hole,
and the boatman sees no more.

This fio-ure is not seen at other times and bv other ft>lk.

112 Free Eussia.

Three months in the year these islands swarm "with pilgrims,
many of whom come and go in their craft from Onega and
Kem. These visitors paddle below the ramparts day and
night ; yet nothing is seen by them of the aged prisoner and
his sentry on the convent wall. Clearly, then, if the figure is
that of a living man, there must be reasons for concealing
him from notice during the pilgrim months.

" Hush !" said a boatman once to a friend of mine, as he lay
in a tiny cove under the convent w\all ; you must not speak so
loud ; these rocks can hear. One dares not whisper in one's
sleep, much less on the open sea, that the phantom walks yon
wall. The pope tells you it is an imp ; the elder laughs in
your face and calls you a fool. If you believe your eyes, they
say you are crazed, not fit to pull a boat."

" Yon have not seen the figure ?"

" Seen him — no ; he is a wretched one, and brings a man
bad luck. God help him ... if he is yet alive !"

" You think he is a man of flesh and blood ?"

" Holy Virgin keep us ! who can tell ?"

" When was he last seen ?"

"Who knows? A boatman seldom pulls this way at
dusk; and when he finds himself here by chance, he turns his
eyes from the castle wall. Last year, a man got into trouble
by his chatter. He came to sell his fish, and fetching a
course to the south, brought up his yawl under the castle
guns. A voice called out to him, and when he looked up
suddenly, he saw behind the loop-hole a bare and venerable
head. While he stood staring in his yawl, a crack ran
through the air, and looking along the line of roof, he saw, be-
hind a puff of smoke, a sentinel with his gun. A moment
more and he was off. When the drink was in his head, he
prated about the ghost, until the elder took away his boat and
told him he was mad."

" What is the figure like ?"

"A tall old man, white locks, bare head, and eyes upraised,
as if he were trying to cool his brain."

" Does he walk the same place always ?"

" Yes, they say so ; always. Yonder, between the turrets,
is the phantom's walk. Let us go back. Hist ! That is the
convent bell."

A Convent Spe<ctee. 113

The explanation hinted by Pietrowski, and widely taken
for the truth, is that the figure which walks these ramparts in
the winter months is not only that of a living man, but of a
popular and noble prince ; no less a personage than the Grand
Duke Constantine, elder brother of the late Emperor Xicolas,
and natural heir to the imperial crown !

This prince, in whose cause so many patriots lost their
lives, is commonly supposed to have given up the world for
love ; to have willingly renounced his rights of succession to
the throne ; to have acquiesced in his younger brother's
reign-; to have died of cholera in Minsk ; to have been buried
in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. But many persons
look on this story as a mere official tale. Their version is,
that the prince was a liberal prince ; that he married for
love ; that he never consented to waive his rights of birth ;
that the documents published by the Senate were forged ;
that the Polish rising of 1831 was not directed against him;
that the attack on his summer palace was a feint ; that his re-
tirement to Minsk was involuntary; that he did not die of
cholera, as announced ; that he was seized in the night, and
whisked away in a tarantass, while Russia was deceived by
funeral rites ; that he was driven in the tarantass to Archan-
gel, whence he was borne to Solovetsk ; that he escaped from
the convent ; that in the year of Emancipation he suddenly
appeared in Penza ; that he announced a reign of liberty and
peace ; that he was followed by thousands of jjcasants ; that,
on being defeated by General Dreniakine, he was suffered to
escape ; that he was afterwards seized in secret, and sent back
to Solovetsk ; where he is still occasionally seen by fishermen
walking on the convent Avail.

The facts which underlie these versions of the same histor-
ical events are wrapped in not a little doubt ; and what is
actually known is of the kind that may be read in a different
sense by different eyes.

Hi Free Eussia.

CHAPTER XX.

STORY OP A GRAND DUKE.

When Alexander the First — elder brother of Constantine
and Nicolas — died, unexpectedly, at Taganrog, on the distant
Sea of Azof, leaving no son to reign in his stead, the crown
descended, by law and usage, to the brother next in birth.
Constantine was then at Warsaw, with his Polish wife ; Nic-
olas was at St. Petersburg, with his guards. Constantine Avas
called the heir ; and up to that hour no one seems to have
doubted that he would wear the crown, in case the Emperor's
life should fail. There was, however, a party in the Senate
and the barrack against him ; the old Russian party, Avho could
not pardon him his Polish wife.

When couriers brought the news from Taganrog to St. Pe-
tersburg, Nicolas, having formed no plans as yet, called up the
guards, announced his brother's advent to the throne, and
set them an example of loyalty by taking the oath of alle-
giance to his Imperial Majesty Constantine the First. The
guards being sworn, the generals and staff-officers signed the
act of accession and took the oaths. Cantering off to their
several barracks, these officers put the various regiments of
St. Petersburg under fealty to Constantine the First ; and
Nicolas sent news that night to Warsaw that the new Emper-
or had begun to reign.

But while the messengers were tearing through the winter
snows, some members of the Senate came to Nicolas with yet
more startling news. Alexander, they said, had left with them
a sealed paper, contents unknown, which they were not to open
until they heard that he was dead. On opening this packet,
they found in it two papers ; one a letter from the Grand
Duke Constantine, Avritten in 1822, renouncing his rights in
the ' crown ; the second, a manifesto by the dead Emperor,
written in 1823, accepting that renunciation and adopting his
brother Nicolas as his lawful heir. A similar packet, they al-

Story of a Grand Duke. 115

leged, had been secretly left Avith Philavet of Moscow, and
would be found in the sacristy of his cathedral church. Nico-
las scanned these documents closely ; saw good reason to put
them by ; and urged the whole body of the Senate to swear
fidelity to Constantino the First. In every office of the State
the imperial functionaries took this oath. All Russia, in fact
all Europe, saw that Constantine had opened his reign in j^eace. ( a •

Then followed a surprise. Some letters passed between4U ^\0';'
the two grand dukes, in which (it was said) the brothei's were \iju\i
each endeavoring to force the other to ascend the throne ; / — j
Nicolas urging that Constantine was the elder born and right- \ wX;»
ful heir ; Constantine urging that Nicolas had better health
and a more active spirit. Ten days rolled by. The Empire
was without a chief. A plot, of which Pestel, Rostovtscf, and
JMouravief were leading spirits, was on the point of explosion.
But on Christmas Eve, the Grand Duke Nicolas made up his
mind to take the crown. He spent the night in drawing up
a manifesto, setting forth the facts which led him to occupy
his brother's seat ; and on Christmas Day he read this paper
in the Senate, by which body he was at once proclaimed Au-
tocrat and Tsar. A hundred generals rode to the various
barracks, to read the new proclamation, and to get those troops
who had sworn but a week ago to uphold his majesty Con-
stantine the First, to cast that oath to the winds, and swear a
second time to uphold his majesty Nicolas the First. But, if
most of the regiments were quick to unswear themselves by
word of command, a part of the guards, and chiefly the ma-
rines and grenadiers, refused ; and, marching from their quar-
ters into St. Isaac's Square, took up a menacing position to-
wards the new Emperor, while a cry rose wildly from the
crowd, of " Long live Constantine the First !"

A shot was heard.

Count Miloradovitch, governor-general of St. Petersburg,
fell dead ; a brave general who had j^assed through fifty bat-
tles, killed as he was trying to harangue his troops. A line
of fire now opened on the square. Colonel Stiirler fell, at the
head of his regiment of guards. When night came down, the
ground was covered with dead and dying men ; but Nicolas
was master of the square. A charge of grape-shot swept the
streets clear of rioters just as night was coming down.

116 Free Eussia.

"VVlicn the trials to which the events of that day gave rise
came on, it suited both the Government and the conspirators
to keep the grand duke out of sight. Count Nesseh'ode told
the courts that this revolt was revolutionary, not dynastic ;
and Nicolas denounced the leaders to his people as men who
wished to bring " a foreign contagion upon their sacred soil."

The grand duke and his Polish wife remained in Warsaw,
living at the summer garden of Belvedere, in the midst of
woods and lakes, of pictures, and Avorks of art. Once, indeed,
he left his charming villa for a season ; to appear, quite unex-
pectedly (the court declared), in the Kremlin, and assist in
placing the Imperial crown on his brother's head. That act
of grace accomi^lished, he returned to Warsaw ; where he
reigned as viceroy; keeping a modest court, and leading an
almost private life. But the country was excited, the army
was not content. One war was forced by Nicolas on Persia,
a second on Turkey; both of them glorious for the Russian
arms; yet men were said to be troubled at the sight of a
younger brother on the throne ; a sentiment of reverence for
the elder son being one of the strongest feelings in a Slavonic
breast ; and all these troubles were kept alive by the social
and political writhings of the Poles.

Two prosperous wars had made the Emperor so proud and
haughty that when news came in from Paris, telling him of
the fall of Charles the Tenth, he summoned his minister of
war, and ordered his troops to march. He said he would
move on Paris, and his Kozaks began to talk of j)icqueting
their horses on the Seine. But the French have agencies of
mischief in every town of Poland ; and in less than five months
after Charles the Tenth left Paris, Warsaw was in arms.

Every act of this Polish rising seems, so far as concerns the
Grand Duke Constantine, to admit of being told in different
ways.

A band of young men stole into the Belvedere in the gloom
of a November night, and ravaged through the rooms. They
killed General Gendre ; they killed the vice-president of po-
lice, Lubowicki ; and they suffered the grand duke to escape
by the garden gate. These are the facts ; but whether he es-
caped by chance is what remains in doubt. The Russian ver-
sion w^as that these young fellows came to kill the prince, as

Story of a Grand Duke. 117

well as Gendre and Lubowicki ; that a servant, bearing the
tumult near the palace, ran to his master's room, and led him
through the domestic passages into the open air. The Polish
version was, that these young men desired to find the prince ;
not to murder him, but to use him as either hostage or em-
peror in their revolt against his brother's rule.

Arriving in Warsaw from his country-house, the grand duke,
finding that city in the power of a revolted soldiery, moved
some posts on the road towards the Russian frontier. Agents
came to assure him that no harm was meant to him ; that he
was free to march with his guards and stores ; that no one
would follow him or molest him on the road. Some Polish
companies were with him ; and four days after his departure
from Belvedere, he received in his camp near Warsaw a depu-
tation, sent to him by his own request, from the insurgent
chiefs. Then came the act which roused the anger of his
brother's court ; and led, as some folk think, to the mystery
and sympathy which cling around his name.

He asked the deputation to state their terms. " A living
Poland !" they replied ; " the charter of Alexander the First ;
a Polish army and police ; the restoration of our ancient fron-
tier." In return, he told these deputies that he had not sent
to Lithuania for troops ; and he consented that the Polish com-
panies in his camp should return to Warsaw and join the in-
surgent bands ! For such a surrender to the rebels any other
general in the service would certainly have been tried and
shot. The Emperor, when he heard the news, went almost
mad with rage ; and every one wishing to stand Avell at court
began to whisper that the Grand Duke Constantino had for-
feited his honor and his life.

Constantino died suddenly at Minsk, The disease was
cholera ; the corpse was carried to St, Petersburg ; and the
prince, who had lost a crown for love, was laid Avith honor
among the ashes of his race, in the gloomy fortress of St, Pe-
ter arid St. Paul,

But no gazetteer could make the common people believe
that their prince was gone froni them forever. Like his fa-
ther Paul, and like his grandfather Peter, he Avas only hiding
in some secret place ; and jiutting their heads together by the
winter fires they told each other lie would come again.

I

118 Free Russia.

In the year of emancipation (1861) a man appeared in the
province of Penza, who announced himself not only as the
grand duke, but as a prophet, a leader^ and a messenger from
the Tsar. lie told the people they were being deceived by
their priests and lords, that the Emperor was on their side,
that the emancipation act gave them the land without pui"-
chase and rent-charge, and that they must support the Em-
l^eror in his design to do them good. A crowd of peasants,
gathering to his voice, and carrying a red banner, marched
through the villages, crying death to the priests and nobles.
General Dreniakine, an aide-de-camp of the Emperor, a prompt
and confidential officer, was sent from St. Petersburg against
the grand duke, whom in his proclamation he called Egortsof,
and after a smart affair, in which eight men were killed and
twenty-six badly hurt, the peasants fled before the troops.
The grand duke was suffered to escape; and nothing more
has been heard of him, except an official hint that he is dead.

What wonder that a credulous people fancies the hero of
such adventures may be still alive ?

In every country which has virtue enough to keep the
memory of a better day, the popular mind is apt to clothe its
hopes in this legendary form. In England, the commons ex-
pected Arthur to awake ; in Portugal, they expected Sebas-
tian to return ; in Germany they believed that Barbarossa sat
on his lonely peak. Masses of men believe that Peter the
Third is living, and will yet resume his throne.

Before landing in the Holy Isles, I gave much thought to
this mystery of the grand duke, and nursed a very faint hoi3e
of being able to resolve the spectre into some mortal shape.

CHAPTER XXI.

DUNGEONS.

My mind being full of this story, I keep an eye on every
gate and trap that might lead me either up or down into a
prisoner's cell. My leave to roam about the convent-yards is
free ; and though I am seldom left alone, except when lodged

Dungeons. 119

in my private roonii, some cliance of loitering round the ram-
parts falls in my way from time to time.- The monks retire
about seven o'clock, and as the sun sets late in the summer
months, I stroll through the woods and round by the Holy
Lake, while Father John is laying our supper of cucumbers
and sprats. Sometimes I get a peep at strange places while
the fathers are at mass.

One day, when strolling at my ease, I come into a small
court-yard, which my clerical guides have often passed by.
- A flutter of wings attracts me to the spot, and, throwing a fGV
crumbs of biscuit on the ground, I am instantly surrounded
by a thousand beautiful doves. They are perfectly tame.
Here, then, is that colony of doves which the Archimandrite
told his people were not disturbed by the English guns ;
and looking at the tall buildings and the narrow yard, I
am less surprised by the miracle than when the story was
told me by the monks. Lifting my eyes to the sills from
which these birds come fluttering down, I see that the win-
dows are barred, that the door is strongly bound. In short,
|- this well-masked edifice is the convent jail ; and it flashes
I on me quickly that behind these grated frames, against
'. which the doves are pecking and cooing, lies the mystery of
; Solovetskr

In going next day round the convent-yards and walls, with
my two attending fathers, dropping hito the quass-house, the
school, the dyeing-room, the tan-yard, and the Weaver's Tow-
er, I lead the way, as if by merest chance, into this pigeons'
court. Referring to the Archimandrite's tale of the doves, I
ask to have that story told again. Hundreds of birds are coo-
ing and crying on the window-sills, just as they may have
done on the eventful feast of Our Lady of Kazan.

" How pretty these doves ! What a song they sing !"
"Pigeons have a good place in the convent," says the fa-
ther at my side. " You see we never touch them ; doves be-
ing sacred in our eyes on account of that scene on the Jordan,
when the Holy Ghost came down to our Lord in the form of
a dove."

"They seem to build by preference in this court."
" Yes, it is a quiet corner ; no one comes into this yard ;
yon windows are never opened from within."

120 > Free Kussia.

" Ah ! tliis is the convent prison ?"

" Yes ; this is the old monastic jDrison."

" Are any of the fathers now confined in the place ?"

" Not one. We have no criminals at Solovetsk."

"But some of the fathers are in durance, eh ? For instance,
where is that monk whom we brought over from Archangel in
disgrace ?. Is he not here ?"

" No ; he has been sent to the desert near Striking HilL"

" Is that considered much of a penalty ?"

" By men like him, it is. In the desert he Avill be alone ;
will see no Avomen, and get no drink. In twelve mouths he
will come back to the convent another man."

" Let us go up into this prison and see the empty cells."

" Not now."

" Why. not ? I am curious about old prisons ; especially
about church prisons ; and can tell you how the dungeons of
Solovetsk would look beside those of Seville, Antwerp, and
Rome."

" We can not enter ; it is not allowed."

" Not allowed to see empty cells ! Were you not told to
show me every part of the convent ? Is there a place into
which visitors must not come ?"

The two fathers step aside for a private talk, during which
I feed the pigeons and hum a tune.

" We can not go in there — at least, to-day."

" Good !" I answer, in a careless tone ; " get leave, and we

will come this way to-morrow Stay ! To-morrow we

sail to Zaet. Why not go in at once and finish what we have
yet to see down here ?"

They feel that time would be gained by going in now ; but
then, they have no keys. All keys are kept in the guard-
room, under the lieutenant's eyes. More talk takes place be-
tween the monks; and doubt on doubt arises, as to the limit
of their powers. Their visitor hums a tune, and throws more
crumbs of bread among the doves, who frisk and flutter to
his feet, until the windows are left quite bare. A father j^ass-
es into a house ; is absent some time ; returns with an officer
in uniform, carrying keys. While they are mounting steps
and opening doors, the pilgrim goes on feeding doves, as
thouo;h he did not care one whit to follow and see the cells.

Dungeons. 121

But when the doors roll back on their rusty hinges, he care-
lessly follows his guides up the prison steps.

The first floor consists of a long dark corridor, under-
ground; ten or twelve vaults arranged in a double row.
These cells are dark and empty. The visitor enters them
one by one, pokes the wall with his stick, and strikes a light
in each, to be sure that no one lies there unobserved ; telling
the ofiicer and the monks long yarns about underground vaults
and wells in Antwerp, Rome, and Seville. Climbing the stairs
to an upper floor, he finds a sentinel on duty, pacing a strong
anteroom ; and feels that here, at least, some prisoner must
be kept under watch and Avard. An iron-bound door is
now unlocked, and the visitor passes with his guides into
an empty corridor with cells on either side, corresponding
in size and number with the vaults below. Every door in
that corridor save one is open. That one door is closed and
barred.

" Some one in there ?"

"No one?" says the father; but in a puzzled tone of voice,
and looking at the officer with inquiring eyes.

" Well, yes ; a prisoner," says that personage.

" Let us go in. Open the door."

Looking at the monks, and seeing no sign of opposition on
their part, the soldier turns the key ; and as we push the door
back on its rusty hinge, a young man, tall and soldier-like,
with long black beard and curious eyes, springs up from a
pallet ; and snatching a coverlet, wraps the loose garment
round his all but naked limbs.

" What is your name ?" the visitor asks ; going in at once,
and taking him by the hand.

" Pushkin," he answers softly ; "Adrian Pushkin."

" How long have you been confined at Solovetsk?"

" Three years ; about three years."

"For what offense?"

He stares in wonder, with a Avandering light in his eye that
tells his secret in a flash.

" Have you been tried by any court ?"

The officer interferes ; the sentinel on guard is called ; and
we are huddled by the soldiers — doing what they are told —
from the prisoner's cell.

122 Free Kussia.

" What has he done ?" I ask the fathers, when the door is
slammed ui3on the captive's face.

" We do not know, except in part. He is condemned by
the Holy Governing Synod. He denies our Lord." More
than this could not be learned.

"A mad young man," sighs the monk; "he might have
gone home long ago ; but he would not send for a pope, and
kiss the cross. He is now of better mind ; if one can say he
has any mind. A mad young man !"

There is yet another flight of steps. " Let us go up and
see the whole."

We climb the stair, and find a second sentinel in the second
anteroom. More prisoners, then, in this upper Avard ! The
door which leads into the corridor being opened, the visitor
sees that here again the cells are empty, and the doors ajar
— in every case but one. A door is locked ; and in the cell
behind that door they say an old man lodges; a prisoner in
the convent for many years.

" How long ?"

" One hardly knows," replies the monk : " he was here
when most of us came to Solovetsk. He is an obstinate fel-
low ; quiet in his ways ; but full of talk ; he worries you to
death ; and you can teach him nothing. More than one of
our Archimandrites, having pity on his case, has striven to
lead him into a better path. An evil spirit is in his soul."

"Who is he?"

" A man of rank ; in his youth an officer in the army."

" Then you know his name ?"

" We never talk of him ; it is against the rules. We pray
for him, and such as he is ; and he needs our prayers. A bad
Russian, a bad Christian, he denies our holy Church."

" Does he ever go out ?"

" In w^inter, yes ; in summer, no. He might go to mass ;
but he refuses to accept the boon. He says we do not wor-
ship God aright ; he thinks himself wiser than the Holy Gov-
erning Synod — he ! But in winter days, when the pilgrims
have gone away, he is allowed to walk on the rampart wall,
attended by a sentinel to prevent his flight."

" Has he ever attempted flight ?"

" Attempted ! Yes ; he got away from the convent ; cross-

DUNGEOXS. 123

ed the sea ; went inland, and we lost him. If he could have
held his peace, he might have been free to this very hour ; but
he could not hold his tongue ; and then he was captured and
brought back."

" Where was he taken ?"

" Xo one knows. He canae back pale and worn. Since then
he has been guarded with greater care."

Here, then, is the prisoner whom I wish to see ; the spec-
tre of the wall ; the figure taken for the prince ; the man in
whom centre so many hopes. " Open the door !" My tone
comj^els them either to obey at once or go for orders to the
Arcliimandrite's house. A parley of the officer and monks
takes place ; ending, after much ado, in the door being un-
locked (to save them trouble), and the whole party passing
into the prisoner's cell.

An aged, handsome man, like Kossuth in appearance, starts
astonished from his seat ; unused, as it Avould seem, to such
disturbance of his cell. A small table, a few books, a pallet
bed, are the only furnishings of his room, the window of which
is ribbed and crossed with iron, and the sill bespattered with
dirt of doves. A table holds some scraps of books and jour-
nals ; the prisoner being allowed, it seems, to receive such things
from the outer world, though he is not permitted to send out
a single line of writing. Pencils and pens are banished from
his cell. Tall, upright, spare ; with the bearing of a soldier
and a gentleman ; he wraps his cloak round his shoulder, and
comes forward to meet his unexpected guests. The monks
present me in form as a stranger visiting Solovetsk, without
mentioning Ms name to me. He holds out his hand and
smiles ; receiving me with the grace of a gentleman offering
the courtesies of his house. A man of noble presence and
courtly bearing : o-iot, however, the Grand Duke Constantine,
as fishermen and pilgrims say !

" Your name is — ?"

" Ilyin ; Nicolas Ilyin."

" You have been here long ?"

Shaking his head in a feeble way, he mutters to himself, as
it were, like one who is trying to recall a dream. I put the
question again ; this time in German. Then he faintly smiles ;
a big tear starting in his eye. " Excuse me, sir," he sighs,

124: Free Kussia.

" I have forgotten most things ; even the use of speech. Once
I spoke French easily. Now I liave all but forgotten my
mother tongue."

" You have been here for years ?"

" Yes ; many. I wait upon the Lord. In His own time my
prayer will be heard, and my deUverance come,''

" You must not speak with this prisoner," says the officer
on duty ; " no one is allowed to speak with him." The lieu-
tenant is not uncivil ; but he stands in a place of trust ; and
he has to think of duty to his colonel before he can dream of
courtesy to his guest.

In a moment we are in the pigeons' court. The iron gates
are locked ; the birds are fluttering on the sills ; and the pris-
oners are alone once more.

CHAPTER XXII.

NICOLAS ILYIN".

Leaving Solovetsk for the south, I keep the figure of this
aged prisoner in my mind, and by asking questions here and
there, acquire in time a general notion of his course of life.
But much of it remains dark to me, until, on my return from
Kertch and Kief to St. Petersburg, the means are found for
me of opening up a secret source.

The details now to be given from this secret source— con-
trolled by other and independent facts — will throw a flood of
light into some of the darkest corners of Russian life, and
bring to the front some part of the obstacles through which a
reforming Emperor has to march.

It will be also seen that in the story of Ilyin's career, there
are points — apart from Avhat relates to the convent spectre,
and the likeness to Constantine the First — which might ac-
count for some of the sympathy shown for him by Poles.

Ilyin seems to have been born in Poland ; his mother was
certainly a Pole. His father, though of Swedish origin, held
the rank of general in the imperial service. At an early age
the boy Avas sent by General Ilyin to the Jesuits' College in

Nicolas Ilyin. 125

Polotsk ; that famous school in which, according to report,
so many young men of family were led astray in the opening
years of Alexander the First. The names he bore inclined
him to devote his mind to sacred studies. Nicolas is the poor
man's saint, and Ilyin is the Russian form of Elias, the He-
brew prophet. It is not by chance, he thought, that men in-
herit and receive such names.

He was highly trained. In the school-room he was noted
for his gentle ways, his studious habits, his religious tui-n of
mind. He neither di'ank nor swore ; he neither danced nor
gamed. When the time arrived for him to leave his college
and join the army, he passed a good examination, took a high
degree, and entered an artillery corps with the rank of ensign.
By his new comrades he was noted for his power of work, for
his scorn of pleasure, for his purity of life. A hard reader, he
gave up his nights and days to studies which were then unu-
sual in the mess-room and the camp. While other young men
W'ere drinking deep and dancing late in their gai-rison-towns,
he was giving up the hours that could be snatched from drill
and gunnery to Newton on the Apocalypse, to Swedenborg
on Heaven and Hell, to Bengel on the Number of the Beast.
AYhat his religious doctrines were in these early days, we can
only guess. His father seems to have been a Greek Catholic,
his mother a Roman Catholic ; and we know too much of the
genius which inspired the Jesuits' College in Polotsk to doubt
that every effort would be made by the fathers to win such a
student as Nicolas Ilyin to their side.

In Polotsk, as in nearly all Polish towns, reside a good
many learned Jews. Led by his Apocalyptic studies to seek
the acquaintance of Rabbins, Ilyin talked with these new
friends about his studies, and even went with them to their
synagogue ; in the ritual of which he found a w^orld of mysti-
cal meaning not suspected by the Jews themselves. In con-
ning the Mishna and Gemara, he began to dream that a con-
fession of faith, a form of prayer, a mode of communion,
might be framed, by help of God's Holy Spirit, Avhich Avould
place the great family of Abraham under a common flag. A
dream, it may be, yet a noble dream !

Ilyin toyed with this idea, until he fancied that the time for
a reconciliation of all the religious societies owning the God

126 Free Russia.

of Abraham for their father was close at hand ; and that he,
Nicolas Ilyin — born of a Greek father and a Catholic mother ;
bearing the names of a Hebrew prophet and a Russian saint ;
instructed, first by Jesuits and then by Rabbins ; serving in
the armies of an Orthodox emj^eror — was the chosen prophet
of this reign of grace and peace. A vision helped him to ac-
cept his mission, and to form his plan.

Taking the Hebrew creed, not only as more ancient and
venerable, but as simpler in form than any rival, he made it
the foundation for a wide and comprehensive church. Begin-
ning with God, he closed with man. Setting aside, as things
indifferent, all the points on which men disagree, he got rid
of the immaculate conception, the symbol of the cross, the
form of baptism, the practice of confession, the official Church,
and the sacerdotal caste. In his broad review, nothing was
of first importance save the unity of God, the fraternity of
men.

Gifted with a noble presence and an eloquent tongue, he be-
gan to teach this doctrine of the coming time ; announcing
his belief in a general reconciliation of all the friends of God.
The monks who have lodged him in the Frozen Sea, accuse
him of deceit ; alleging that he affected zeal for the Orthodox
faith ; and that on converting General Vronbel, his superior
officer, from the Roman Church to the Russian Church, he
sought, as a rcAvard for this service, a license to go about and
preach. The facts may be truly stated ; yet the moral may
be falsely drawn. A general in the Russian service, not of
the national creed, has very few means of satisfying his spirit-
ual wants. Unless he is serving in some great city, a Roman
Catholic can no more go to mass than a Lutheran can go to
sermon ; and an officer of either confession is apt to smoke a
pipe and play at cards, while his Orthodox troops are attend-
ing mass. Ilyin may have deemed it better for Vronbel to
become a good Greek than remain a bad Catholic. In these
early days of his religious strife, he seems to have dreamt that
the Orthodox Church afforded him the readiest means of
reconciling creeds and men. In bringing strangers into that
fold, he was putting them into the better way. Anyhow, he
converted his general, and obtained from his bishop the right
to preach.

ISTicoLAS Ilyix. 127

It was the hope of his bishop that he Avould bring in strag-
glers to the fold ; not that he should set up for himself a
broader camp in another name and under a bolder flag. Ilyin
went out among the sectaries who abound in every province
of the empire ; and to these men of Avayward mind he preach-
ed a doctrine which his ecclesiastical patrons fancied to be
that of the Orthodox faith. In every place he drew to himself
the hearts of men ; winning them alike by the splendor of his
eloquence and by the purity of his life.

Early married, early blessed with children, happy in his
home, Ilyin could give up liand and heart to the work he had
found. He took from the Book of Revelation the name of
Right-hand Brethren, as an appropriate title for all true merti-
bers of the church ; his purpose being to proclaim the j^resent
unity and future salvation of all the friends of God.

A good soldier, a good man of business, Ilyin was sent to
the government works, in the province of Perm, in the Ural
Mountains, where he found time, in the midst of his purely
military duties, for preaching among the poor, and drawing-
some of those who had strayed into separation back into the
orthodox fold. His enemies admit that in those days of his
w^ork in the Ural Mountains he lived a holy life. Going on
state affairs to the mines of Barancha, where the Government
owns a great many iron works and steel Avorks, he saw among
the sectaries of that district, most of whom were exiles suf-
fering for their conscience' sake, a field for the exercise of his
talents as a pi-eacher'of the word, a reconciler of men. But
the martyrs of free thought whom he met in the mines of
Barancha, were to him what the Kaffir chieftains were to the
Bishop of !N'atal. They put him to the test. They showed
him the darker side of his cause. They led him to doubt
Avhether reconciliation was to be expected from metropolites
and monks. Forced into a sharper scrutiny of his own belief,
Ilyin at length gave up his adv^ocacy of the Orthodox faith,
and even ceased to attend the Orthodox mass.

A secret Church was slowly formed in the province of
Perm, of Avhich Ilyin was the chief. Not much was known in
high quarters about his doings, until Protopopoff, one of his
pupils, was accused of some trifling offense, connected with
the public service, and brought to trial. Protopopoff was a

128 Free Eussia.

leading man among the Ural dissenters. His true offense was
some expression against the Church. Ilyin appeared in pub-
lic as his friend and advocate. Protopopoff was condemned :
and Ilyin closely watched. Ere long, the director-general of
the Ural Mines reported to his chief, the minister of finance
in St. Petersburg, that in one of his districts he had found ex-
isting among the miners a new religious body, calling them-
selves, in secret. Right-hand Brethren, of which body Nicolas
Ilyin, captain of artillery in the Emperor's service, was the
chief and priest.

Not a little frightened by his discoveries, the director-gen-
eral lost his head. In his rei^ort to the minister of finance,
he said a good deal of these reconcilers that was not true.
He charged them with circumcising children, with advocating
a community of goods and lands, with proj^agating doctrines
fatally at war with imperial order in Church and State.

It is true that under the name of Gospel love, the followers
of Ilyin taught very strongly the necessity and sanctity of
mutual help. They spoke to the poor, and bade them take
heart of grace ; bidding them look, not only for bliss in a bet-
ter world, but for a reign of peace and plenty on the earth.
In the great questions of serf and soil, two points around which
all popular politics then moved, they took a part with the
peasant against his lord, though Ilyin was himself of noble
birth. These things appeared to the director-general of mines
anarchical and dangerous, and Ilyin was denounced by him to
the minister of finance as a man who w^as compromising the
public peace.

But the fact which more than all else struck the council in
St. Petersburg, was the zeal of Ilyin's jDupils in spreading his
doctrine of the unity and brotherhood of mankind. The new
society was said to be perfect in unity. The first article of
their association was the need for missionary work ; and ev-
ery member of the sect was an apostle, eager to spend his
strength and give his life in building up the friends of God.
A man who either could not or would not convert the Gen-
tile was considered unworthy of a place on His right hand.
At the end of seven years a man who brought no sheep into
the fold was expelled as wanting in holy fire. Ilyin is alleged
to have declared that there was no salvation beyond the pale

Nicolas Ilyix. 129

of this new church, and that all those who professed any oth-
er creed would find their position at the last day on the left
hand of God, while the true brethren found their seats on His
right. This story is not likely to be true ; and an intolerant
Church is always ready with such a cry. It is not asserted
that the new Church had any printed books, or even circulars,
in which these things were taught. The doctrine was alleged
to be contained in certain manuscript gospels, copied by pros-
elytes and passed from one member to another; such manu-
scrij)t gospels having been written, in the first instance at
least, by Ilyin himself.

A special commission was named by the ministers to inves-
tigate the facts ; and this commission, proceeding at once into
\ the Ural Mines, arrested many of the members, and seized
some specimens of these fugitive gospel sheets. Ilyin, ques-
tioned by the commissioners, avowed himself the author of
these Gospel tracts, which he showed them were chiefly copies
of sayings extracted from the Sermon on the Mount. In
scathing terms, he challenged the right of these commission-
ers to judge and condemn the words of Christ. Struck by his
eloquence and courage, the commission hardly knew what to
say ; but as practical men, they hinted that a captain of the
imperial artillery holding such doctrines must be unsound in
mind.

A I'eport from these commissioners being sent, as usual, to
the Holy Governing Synod, that boaixl of monks made very
short work of this pretender to sacred gifts. The reconciler
of creeds and men was lodged in the Convent of the Frozen
Sea until he should put away his tolerance, give up his dream
of reconciliation, and submit his conscience to the guidance of
a monk.

And so the reconciler rests in his convent ward. The Holy
Governing Synod treats such men as children who have gone
astray ; looking forward to the wanderer coming round to his
former state. The sentence, therefore, runs in some such form
as this : " You will be sent to . . . ., where you will stay, un-
der sound discipline, until you have been brought to a better
mind." Unless the man is a rogue, and yields in policy, one
sees how long such sentences ai-e likely to endure !

Nicolas Ilyin is a learned man, with whom no monk in the

9

130 Free Kussia.

Convent of Solovetsk is able to contend in speech. A former
Archimandrite tried his skill ; bnt the prisoner's verbal fence
and knowledge of Scripture were too much for his feeble pow-
ers ; and the man who had repulsed the English fleet retired
discomfited from Ilj'in's cell.

Once the prisoner got away, by help of soldiers who had
known him in his happier days. Escaping in a boat to One-
ga Point, he might have gone his way overland, i^rotected by
the people ; but instead of hiding himself from his pursuers,
he began to teach and preach. Denounced by the police, he
was quickly sent back to his dungeon ; while the soldiers who
had borne some share in his escape were sent to the Siberian
mines for life.

The noble name and courtly family of Ilyin are supjDosed to
have saved the arrested fugitive from convict labor in the
mines.

My efforts to procure a pardon for the old man failed ; at
least, for a time ; the answer to my plea being sent to me in
these vague words: "Apres I'examin du dossier de 1' affaire
d'llyin, il resulte qii'il n'y a pas eu d'arrct de mise en liberte."
Yet men like Nicolas Ilyin are the salt of this earth; men
who will go through fire and water for their thought; men
who would live a true life in a dungeon rather than a false
life in the richest mansions of the world !

CHAPTER XXIII.

ADRIAIS^ PUSHKIN.

Except the fact of their having been lodged in the Con-
vent of Solovetsk in neighboring cells, nnder the same hard
rule, Adrian Pushkin and Nicolas Ilyin have nothing in com-
mon ; neither age nor rank ; neither learning nor talent ; not
an opinion; not a sympathy; not a purpose. Pushkin is
young, Ilyin is old. Pushkin is of burgher, Ilyin of noble
birth. Pushkin is uneducated in the higher sense ; Ilyin is a
scholar to whom all systems of philosophy lie open, Push-
kin is not clever ; Ilyin is considered, even by his persecutors,
as a man of the highest powers.

Adrian Pushkix. 131

Yet Pushkin's story, from the man's obscurity, affords a
still more curious instance of the dark and difficult way
through which a beneficent and reforming government has to
pass.

Early in the spring of 1866, a youth of good repute in his
class and district, that of a small burgher, in the town of
Perm, began to make a stir on the Ural slopes, by xmnomic-
ing to the peasant dissenters of that region the second com-
ing of our Lord, and offering himself as the reigning Christ !

Such an event is too common to excite remark in the up-
per ranks, until it has been seen by trial whether the an-
nouncement takes much hold on the peasant mind. In Push-
kin's case, the neighbors knew their j^rophet Avell. From his
cradle he had been frail in body and flushed in mind. When
he was twenty years old, the doctors were consulted on his
state of mind ; and though they would not then pronounce
him crazy, they reported him as a youth of weak and febrile
pulse, afflicted with disease of the heart ; a boy who might, at
any moment of his life, go mad. Easy work, in country air,
was recommended. A place was got for him in the country,
on the Countess Strogonof 's estate, not far from Perm. He
was made a kind of clerk and overseer ; a place of trust, in
which the work was light ; but even this light labor proved
too great for him to bear. In doing his duty to his mistress,
his mind gave way ; and when the light went out on earth,
the poor idiot offered his help in leading other men up to
heaven.

Many of the people near him knew that he was crazed ;
but his unsettled wits were rather a help than hindrance to
his success in stirring np the village wine-shop and the work-
man's shed. In every part of the East some touch of idiotcy
is looked for in a holy man ; the Avandering eye, the broken
phrase, the distracted mien, being read as signs of the Holy
Spirit. The province of Perm is rich in sectaries; many of
whom watch and pray continually for the second coming of
our Lord. Among these sectaries, Adrian found some Hsten-
ers to his tale. He spoke to the poor, and of the jioor. Call-
ing the peasants to his side, he pictured to them a kingdom
of heaven in which they would owe no taxes and pay no rent.
The earth, he told them, was the Lord's ; a paradise given by

132 Free Eussia.

Him as a possession to His saints. What peasant would not
hear such news with joy ? A gospel preached in the village
wine-shoj) and the workman's shed was soon made known by
its fruits ; and the Governor of Perm was told that tenants
were refusing to pay their rent and to render service, on the
ground that the kingdom of heaven was come and that
Christ had begun to reign.

Adrian was now arrested, and being placed before the Se-
cret Consultative Committee of Perm, he was found guilty of
having preached false doctrine and advocated unsocial meas-
ures ; of having taught that the taxes were heavy, that the
peasants should possess the land, that dues and service ought
to be refused. Knowing that the young man was mad, the
Secret Consultative Committee saw that they could never
treat his case like that of a man in perfect health of body and
mind. They thought the Governor of Perm might request
the Holy Governing Synod to consent that Pushkin should
be simply lodged in some country convent, where he might
live in peace, and, under gentle treatment, hope to regain hiS/
wandering sense.

But the Holy Governing Synod pays scant heed to lay opin-
ion. Judging the young man's fault with sharper anger than
the Secret Consultative Committee of Perm had done, they
sent him to Solovetsk ; not until he should recover his sense
and could resume his duties as a clerk, but until such time as
he should recant his doctrines and publicly return to the Or-
thodox fold.

Valouef, Minister of the Interior, received from Perm a
copy of this synodal resolution, which he saw, as a layman,
that he could not carry out, except by flying in the face of
Russian law. The man was mad. The Holy Governing
Synod treated him as sane. But how could he, a jurist, cast
a man into prison for being of unsound mind ? No code in
the world would sanction such a course ; no court in Russia
would sustain him in such an act. Of course, the Holy Gov-
erning Synod was a light unto itself ; but here the civil pow-
er was asked to take a part which in the minister's con-
science was against the spirit and letter of the imperial code.

It Avas a case of peril on either side. Such things had
been done so often in former years, that the Church expected

Adrian Pushkin. 133

them to go on forever ; and the monks were certain to resist,
to slander, and destroy the man who should come between
them and their prey. Valouef, acting with j^rudence, brought
the report before a council of ministers, and after much de-
bate, not only of the siDecial facts but of the guiding rules,
the council of ministei's agreed upon these two jjoints : first,
that such a man as Pushkin could not be safely left at large
in Perm ; second, that it would be against the whole spirit of
Russian law to punish a man for being out of his mind.

On these two principles being adopted, Valouef was recom-
mended by the Council of Ministers to j^rocure the Emperor's
leave for Adrian Pushkin to be brought from Perm to St.
Petersburg, for the purpose of undergoing other and more
searching medical tests. Carrying his minute-book to the
Emperor, Valouef explained the facts, together with the rules
laid down, and his majesty, adojiting the suggestion, wrote
with his own hand these words across the page : " Let this be
done according to the Minister of the Interior's advice. Oct.
21,1866."

On this humane order, Pushkin was brought from Perm to
St. Petersburg, where he was placed before a board of medi-
cal men. After much care and thought had been given to
the subject, this medical board declared that Pushkin was
unsound of brain, and could not be held responsible for his
words and acts.

So far then as Emperor and ministers could go, the course
of justice was smooth and straight; but then came up the
question of what the Church would say. A board of monks
had ordered Pushkin to be lodged in the dungeons of Solo-
vetsk until he repented of his sins. A board of medical men
had found him out of his mind ; and a council of ministers,
acting on their report, had come to the conclusion that, ac-
cording to law, he could not be lodged in jail. His majesty
was become a party to the course of secular justice by having
signed, with his own hand, the order for Adrian to be fetched
from Perm and subjected to a higher class of medical tests.
Emperor, ministers, physicians, stood on one side ; on the
other side stood a board of monks. Which was to have their
way?

The Holy Governing Synod held their ground ; and in a

134 Free Eussia.

question of false teaching it was impossible to oppose their
vote. They knew, as well as the doctors, that Adrian was in-
sane ; but then, they said, all heretics are more or less insane.
The malady of unbelief is not a thing for men of science to
understand. They, and not a medical board, could purge a
sufferer like Pushkin of his evil spirit. They said he must be
sent, as ordered, to the Frozen Sea.

No minister could sign the warrant for his removal after
what had passed ; and, powerful as they are, the Holy Govern-
ing Synod have to use the civil arm. The dead-lock was
complete. But here came into play the silent and inscrutable
agency of the secret police. These secret police have a life
apart from that of every other body in the State. They think
for every one; they act for every one. So long as law is
clear and justice prompt, they may be silent — looking on ;
but when the hour of conflict comes, when great tribunals are
at feud, when no one else can see their way, these officers step
to the front, set aside codes and rules, precedents and decis-
ions, as so much idle stuff, assume a right to judge the judges,
to replace the ministers, and, in the name of public safety, do
what they consider, in their wisdom, best for all.

The men who form this secret body are not called police,
but "members of the third section of his imperial majesty's
chancellery." They are highly conservative, not to say des-
potic, in their views; and said to feel a particular joy when
thwarting men of science and overruling judgments given
in the courts of law. One general rule defines the power
which they can bring to bear in such a case as that of Adrian
Pushkin. If justice seems to them to have failed, and they
are firmly persuaded — they must be " firmly persuaded " —
that the public service requires " exclusive measures " to be
adopted, they are free to act.

On the whole, these secret agents side with power against
law, with usage against reform, with all that is old against
every thing that is new. In Pushkin's case they sided with
the monks. Overriding Emperor, minister, council, medical
board, they carried Pushkin to the "White Sea, where he was
placed by the Archimandrite, not in a monastic cell, but in the
dismal corridor in which I found him. He is perfectly sub-
missive, and clearly mad. He goes to mass without ado, says

Dissent. 135

liis prayers, confesses his sins, and seems to have returned into
the arms of the official Church. The monks in charge of him
"have told their chiefs that he is now of right mind Avith re-
gard to the true faith ; and the Governor of Archangel has
written to advise that he should be allowed to go back to his
friends in Perm.

It is hard, however, for a man to get away from Solovetsk.
A year ago, General Timashef, who has now replaced Valouef
in the Ministry of the Interior, wrote to ask whether the Holy
Governing Synod had not. heard from the Archimandrite of
Solovetsk in favor of the prisoner ; and whether the time had
not come for him to be given up to his friends. No answer
to that letter has been received to the present day (Dec, 1869).
The board of monks are slow to undo their work; the dissi-
dents in Perm are gaining ground ; and this poor madman re-
mains a prisoner in the pigeons' yard !

CHAPTER XXIV.

DISSENT.

These dissidents, who ruffle so much the patient faces of
the monks, are gaining ground in other provinces of the em-
pire as well as Perm.

Such tales as those of Ilyin and Pushkin open a passage, as
it were, beneath an observer's feet ; going down into crypts
and chambers below the visible edifice of the Orthodox Church
and Govei-nment ; showing that, in the secret depths of Rus-
sian life there may be other contentions than those which are
arming the married clergy against the monks. On prying
into these crypts and chambers, we find a hundred points on
which some part of the j^eople differ from their Official
Church.

The Emperor Xicolas would not hear of any one falling
from his Church ; " autocracy and orthodoxy " was his mot-
to ; and what the master would not deign to hear, the Minis-
ter of Education tried his utmost not to see. That millions
of Mussulmans, Jews, and Buddhists lived beneath his seep-

136 Free Hussia.

tre, Nicolas was fond of saying ; but for a countryman of his
own to differ in opinion from himself Avas like a mutiny in
his camp. The Church had fixed the belief of one and all ;
the only terms on which they could be saved from hell. Had
he not sworn to observe those terms? While Nicolas lived
it was silently assumed in the Winter Palace that the dissent-
ing bodies were all put down. One Christian church existed
in his empire; and never, perhaps, until his dying hour did
Nicolas learn the truth about those men whom the breath of
his anger was supposed to have swept away !

Outside the Winter Palace and the Official Church dissent
was growing and thriving throughout his reign. No doubt
some few conformed — Avith halters round their throats.
When autocrat and monk combined to crush all those who
held aloof from the State religion, the sincere dissenter had
to pass through bitter times ; but spiritual passion is not
calmed by firing volleys into the house of prayer ; and the
result of thirty years of savage persecution is, that these
non-conformists are to-day more numerous, wealthy, con-
centrated, than they were on the day when Nicolas began
his reign.

No man in Kussia pretends to know the names, the num-
bers, and the tenets of these sects, still less the secrets of their
growth. A mystery is made of them on every side. The
Minister of Police divides them into four large groups, which
he names and classifies as follows :

I. — DuKHOBORTSi, Champions of the Holy Spirit.
II. — MoLOKANi, Milk Drinkers.

III. — Khlysti, Flagellants.

IV. — Skoptsi, Eunuchs.

In our day it is rare to find self-deception carried to so high
a point as in this official list. JFour groups ! Why, the Rus-
sian dissenters boast, like their Hindoo brethren, of a hundred
sects. The classification is no less strange. The Champions
of the Holy Spirit are neither an ancient nor a strong society.
The Milk Drinkers are of later times than the Flagellants and
the Eunuchs. The Flagellants are not so numerous as the
Eunuchs, though they probably surpass in strength the Cham-
pions of the Holy Spirit.

The Flagellants and Eunuchs are of ancient date — no one

Dissent. 137

knows how ancient ; the Flagellants going back to the four-
teenth century at least ; the Eunuchs going back to the Scyth-
ian ages ; while the Milk Drinkers antl the Champions of the
Holy Spirit sprang into life in the times of Peter the Great.

CHAMPIOXS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Though standing first in the official list, the Champions of
the Holy Spirit are one of the less important sects. They
write nothing, and never preach. The only book which con-
tains their doctrine is " The Dukhobortsi," written by a satir-
ist and a foe ! Novitski, a professor in the University of
Kief, having heard of these champions from time to time,
threw what he leai-ned about them into a squib of some eighty
pages ; meaning to laugh at them, and do his worst to injure
them, according to his lights. His tract was offered for twen-
ty kopecks, but no one seemed disposed to buy, until the
Champions took it up, read it in simple faith, and sent a depu-
tation to thank the professor for his service to their cause !
Novitski was amused by their gravity ; especially Avhen they
told him a fact of which he was not aware ; that the articles
of their creed had never until then been gathered into a con-
nected group ! Of this droll deputation the jiolice got hints.
Novitski, being an officer of state, was, of course, orthodox ;
and his book bore every sign of having been written to expose
and deride the non-conforming sect. Yet the police, on hear-
ing of that deputation, began to fear thei'e was something
wrong ; and in the hope of setting things right, they put his
tract on their j^rohibited list of books. What more could an
author ask ? On finding the work condemned by the police,
the Champions sent to the writer, paying him many compli-
ments and buying up every copy of his tract at fifty rubles
each. Novitski made a fortune by his squib ; and now, in
spite of his jokes, the laughing Professor of Kief is held to be
the great expounder of their creed ! *

The Champions build no churches and they read no Scrip-
tures ; holding, like some of our Puritan sects, that a church
is but a house of logs and stones, Avhile the temple of God is
the living heart; that books are only woi'ds, deceitful words,
while the conscience of man must be led and ruled by the in-
ner light. They show a tendency towards the most ancient

138 Free Eussia.

form of worship ; holding that every father of a family is a
priest. Many of tliem join the Jews, and undergo the rite of
circumcision. Now and then they buy a copy of the Hebrew
Bible, though they can not read one word of the sacred text.
They keep it in their houses as a charm.

MILK DEIXKERS.

The Milk Drinkers are of more imjjortance than these
Champions of the Holy Spirit.

Critics dispute the meaning of Molokani. The original
seats of the Milk Drinkers are certain villages in the south
country, lying on the banks of a river called the Molotchnaya
(Milky Stream) ; a river flowing past the city of Melitoj)ol
into the Sea of Azof, through a district rich in saltpetic, and
pushing its waters into the sea as white as milk. But some
of the secretaries whom I meet at Volsk, on the Lower Volga,
tell me this resemblance of name is an accident, no more. Ac-
cording to my local guides, the term Milk Drinker, like that
of Shaker, Mormon, and, indeed, of Christian, is a term of con-
tempt applied to them by their enemies, because they decline
to keep the ordinary fasts in Lent. Milk — and what comes of
milk ; butter, whey, and cheese — are staples of food in every
house ; and a sinner who breaks his fast in Lent is pretty sure
to break it on one of the articles derived from milk ; chiefly
by frying his potato in a pat of butter instead of in a droj:) of
vegetable oil.

These milk peoj^le deny the sanctity and the use of fasts,
holding that men who have to work require good food, to be
eaten in moderation all the year round ; no day stinted, no
day in excess. They prefer to live by the laws of nature;
asking and giving a reason for every thing they do. They set
their faces against monks and popes. They look on Christ
with reverence, as the purest being ever boi'n of woman ; but
they deny his oneness A^ith the Father, and treat the miracu-
lous i:)art of his career on earth as a tale of later times. In a
word, the Milk Drinkers are Rationalists.

The name which they give tliemselves is Gospel Men ; for
they profess to stand by the Evangelists ; live with exceeding
purity, and base their daily lives on what they understand to
be the laws laid down for all mankind in the Sermon on the

Dissent. 139

3Ioiint. Under Nicolas they were sorely harried. Sixteen
thousand men and women were seized by the police ; arranged
in gangs ; and driven with rods and thongs across the dreary
steppes and yet more dreary mountain crests into the Caucasus.
In that fearful day a great many of the Milk Drinkers fled
across the Pruth into Turkey, where the Sultan gave them a
village, called Tulcha, for their residence. Wise and tolerant
Turk ! These emigrants carried their virtues and their wealth
into the new country, prospered in their shops and farms, and
made for their protectors beyond the Danube a thousand
friends in their ancient homes.

FLAGELLA^N^TS.

The Flagellants are older in date, stronger in number than
the Champions and the Milk Drinkers. They go back to the
first year of Alexie (1645) ; to a time of deep distress, when
the heads of men were troubled with a sense of their guilty
neglect of God.

One Daniel Philipitch, a peasant in the province of Kostro-
ma, serving in the wars of his country, ran away from his
flag, declared himself the Almighty, and wandered about the
empire, teaching those who would listen to his voice his doc-
trine in the form of three great assertions : I. I am God, an-
nounced by the prophets ; there is no other God but me. II.
There is no other doctrine. III. There is nothing new.

To these three assertions were added nine precepts : (1.)
drink no wine ; (2.) remain where you are, and what you are;
(3.) never marry ; (4.) never sweai*, or name the devil ; (5.)
attend no wedding, christening, or other feast; (6.) never
steal ; (7.) keep my doctrine secret ; (8.) love each other, and
keep my laws ; (9.) believe in the Holy Spirit. Daniel roam-
ed about the country, preaching this gospel for several years,
gathering to himself disciples in many places, though his head-
quarters remained at Kostroma. He Avas God ; and his con-
verts called themselves God's people. Daniel chose a son,
one Ivan Susloff, a peasant of Vladimir ; and this Ivan Sus-
loff chose a pretty young girl as his Virgin Mother, together
with twelve apostles. Flung into prison with forty of his
disciples, Susloff saw the heresy spread. It ran through the
empire, and it has followers at this hour in every part of Cen-

140 FiiEE Russia. .

tral Russia. " God's House," Daniel's residence in the vil-
lao-e of Staroi, still remains — held in the utmost veneration by
country folk.

The chief article of their faith is the last precept given by
Daniel, " Believe in the Holy Ghost." All their discipline
and service is meant to weaken the flesh and strengthen the
spirit ; to which end they fast very often and flog each other
very much.

Great numbers of these Flagellants have been sent into the
Caucasus and Siberia, where many of them have been forced
to serve in the armies and in the mines.

Euxucns.

A more singular body is that of the Beliegolubi (White
Doves), called by their enemies Skoptsi (Eunuchs). These
people " make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heav-
en's sake," and look on Peter the Third, whom they take to
be still alive, as their priest and king. They profess to lead
a life of absolute purity in the Lord ; spotless, they say, as
the sacrificial doves ! The White Doves are believed to live
like anchorites ; all except a few of their prophets and lead-
ing men. They drink no whisky and no wine. They think
it a sin to indulge in fish ; their staple food is milk, with
bread and walnut oil. White, weak, and wasting, they ap-
pear in the shops and streets like ghosts. The monks admit
that they are free from most of the vices Avhich afflict man-
kind. It is affirmed of them that they neither game nor quar-
rel ; that they neither lie nor steal. The sect is secret ; and
any profession of the faith would make a martyr of the man
upon whom was found the sign of his high calling. Seeming
to be what other men are, they often escape detection, not
for years only, but for life ; many of them filling high places
in the world ; their tenets unknown to those who are counted
in the ranks of their nearest friends.

The White Doves have no visible church, no visible chief.
Christ is their king, and heaven their church. But the reign
of Christ has not yet come ; nor will the Prince of Light ap-
pear nntil the earth is worthy to receive Him. Two or three
persons, gathei'ed in His name, may hope to find Him in the
spirit ; but not until three hundred thousand saints confess

Dissent. 141

His reign will He come to abide with them in visible flesh.
One day that sacred host will be complete ; the old earth and
the old heaven Avill pass away, consumed like a scroll in the
fire.

So far as I can see (for the Eunuchs print no books, and
frame no articles), their leading tenet, borrowed from the
East, appears to be that of a recurring Incarnation of the
Word. Just as a pundit of Benares teaches that Vishnu has
been born into the world many times, probably many hun-
dred times, a White Dove holds that the Messiah is for ever-
more being born again into the world which He has saved.
Once He came as a peasant's child in Galilee, when the sol-
diers and high-priests rose on Him and slew Him. Once
again He came as an emperor's grandson in Russia, when the
soldiers and high-priests rose on Him again and slew Him.
He did not die ; for how could God be killed by man? But
He withdrew into the unseen until His hour should come.
Meantime he is with His Church, though not in His majestic
and potential shape, as hero, king, and God.

The White Doves have amongst them, only known to few,
a living Virgin and a living Christ. These incarnations are
not Son and Mother in their mortal shapes ; in fact, the Son
is generally older than the Mother ; and they are not of kin,
except in the Holy Spirit. The present Christ exists in his
lower form ; holy, not royal ; pure, not perfect ; waiting for
the ripeness of his time, when he Avill once again take flesh in
all his majesty as God. A Virgin is chosen in the hope that
when the ripeness of His time has come, He will be born
again from that Virgin's side.

Alexander the First was deeply moved by what he heard
of these sectaries. He went amongst them, and held much
talk with their learned men. It has been imagined that he
joined their church. Under Xicolas, the "Doves" were
chased and seized by the police. On proof of the fact they
were tied in gangs, and sent into the Caucasus, Mhere they
lived — and live — at the town of Maran, a post on the road
from Poti to Kutais, waiting for Peter to arrive. A sec-
ond colony exists in the town of Shemakha, on the road from
Tiflis to the Caspian Sea. They are said to be docile men,
doing little work on scanty food, giving no trouble, and lead-

142 Free Eussia.

ing an innocent and sober life. At present, they are not
much worried by the police ; except when some discovery,
like the Plotitsen case in Tambof, excites the public mind. A
Dove who keeps his counsel, and refrains from trying to con-
vert his neighbors, need not live in fear. The law is against
him ; his faith is forbidden ; he is not allowed to sing in the
streets, to hold public meetings, and to bury his dead with
any of his adopted rites ; these ceremonies of his faith must
be done in private and in secret ; yet this singular body is
said to be increasing fast. They are known to be rich ; they
are reported to be generous. A poor man is never suspected
of being a Eunuch. When the love of woman dies out, from
any cause, in a man's heart, it is always succeeded by the love
of money ; and all the bankers and goldsmiths who have made
great fortunes are suspected of being Doves. In Kertch and
Moscow, you will hear of vast sums in gold and silver being
paid to a single convert for submitting to their rite.

The richest Doves are said to pay large sums of money to
converts, on the strength of a prophecy made by otie of their
holy men, that so soon as three hundred thousand disciples
have been gathered into his fold, the Lord will come to reign
over them in person, and to give up to them all the riches of
the earth.

CHAPTER XXV.

NEW SECTS.

These grouj^s, so far from ending the volume of dissent,
do little more than open it up to sight. Stories of the Flag-
ellants and the Eum;chs are like old-world tales, the scener-
ies of which lie in other ages and other climes. These sects
exist, no doubt ; but they draw the nurture of their life from
a distant world; and they have little more enmity to Church
and State than what descends with them from sire to son.
Committees have sat upon them ; laws have been framed to
suit them ; ministerial papers have described them. Tliey
figure in many books, and are the subjects of much song and
art. In short, they are historical sects, like the Anabaptists

New Sects. 143

in Germany, the Quakers in England, the Alurabradros in
Spain.

But the genius of dissent is change ; and every passing day
gives birth to some new form of faith. As education spreads,
the sectaries multiply. " I am very much puzzled," said to
me a parish jDriest, " by what is going on. I wish to think
the best ; but I have never known a peasant learn to read, and
think for himself, who did not fall away into dissent." The
minds of men are vexed with a thousand fears, excited by a
thousand hopes ; every one seems listening for a voice ; and
every man who has the daring to announce himself is instant-
ly followed by an adoring crowd. These births are in the
time, and of the time ; apostles born of events, and creeds
arising out of present needs. They have a j^olitical side as
well as a religious side. Some samples of these recent
growths may be described from notes collected by me in
provinces of the empire far apart ; dissenting bodies of a
growth so recent, that society — even in Russia — has not yet
heard their names.

LITTLE CHRISTIANS.

In the past year (1868) a new sect broke out in Atkarsk,
in the province of Saratof, and diocese of the Bishop of Tsa-
ritzin. Sixteen persons left the Orthodox Church, without
giving notice to their parish priest. They set up a new re-
ligion, and began to preach a gospel of their own devising.
Saints and altar-pieces, said these dissidents, were idols.
Even the bread and wine were things of an olden time. They
had a call of their own to teach, to suffer, and to build a
Church. This call was from Christ. They obeyed the sum-
mons by going down into the Volga, dipping each other into
the flood, changing their names, and holding together a solemn
feast. This scene took place in winter — Ash Wednesday,
February 26th, when the Avaters of the Volga are locked in
ice, and had to be pierced Avith poles. From that day they
have called themselves humbly, after the Lord's name. Little
Christians.

They have no priests, and hardly any form of prayer. They
keep no images, use no wafers, and make no sacred oil. In-
stead of the consecrated bread, they bake a cake, which they

144 Free Kussia.

afterwards worship, as a special gift from God. This cake
is like a penny bun in shape and size ; but in the minds of
these Little Christians it possesses a potent virtue and a mys-
tic charm.

Hearing of these secessions from his flock, the Bishop of
Tsaritzin wrote to Count Tolstoi, Minister of Education, Avho
in turn dispatched his orders to the district police. These
orders were, that the men were to be closely watched ; that
no more baptisms in the ice were to be allowed ; that no
more cakes were to be baked of the size and shape of a penny
bun. All preaching of these new tenets was to be stopped.
The bishop, living on the spot, was to be consulted on every
point of procedure against the sectaries. All these orders,
and some others, have been carried out ; the police are hap-
py in their labor of repression ; and the heresy of the Little
Christians is increasing fast.

HELPERS.

A few months ago the Governor of Kherson was amused
by hearing that some villagers in his province had been ar-
rested by the police on the ground of their being a great deal
too good for honest men. It was said the men Avho had been
cast into prison never drank, never swore, never lied, owed
no money, and never confessed their sins to the parish priest.
Nobody could make them out ; and the police, annoyed at
not being able to make them out, whipped them off their
fields, threw them into prison, and laid a statement of their
suspicions before the prince.

These over-good peasants were brothers, by name Ratushni,
living in the hamlet of Osnova, in which they owned some
land. Not far from Osnova stands a small town called Ana-
nief, in which lived a burgher named Vonsarski, who was also
marked by the police with a black line, as being a man too
good for his class. Vonsarski paid his debts and kept his
word ; he lived Avith his w^ife in peace ; and he never attended
his parish church. He, too, was seized by the police and
lodged in jail, nntil such time as he should explain himself,
and the governor's pleasure could be learned.

It is surmised that the monks set the police at work ; in the
hope that if nothing could be proved at first against these of-

New Sects. 145

fenders, tongues might be loosened, tattle might come out,
and some sort of charge might be framed, so soon as the fact
of their lying in jail was noised abroad through the southei'n
steppe.

Ratushni and Vonsarski were known to be clever men ; to
have talked Avith Moravian settlers in the south. They were
suspected of looking with a lenient eye on the foreign style of
harnessing bullocks and driving carts. They were accused of
underrating the advantages of rural communes, in favor of a
more equitable and religious system of mutual help. They
were called the Helpers. But their chief offense appears to
have been their preference for domestic worship over that of
the parish priest.

The Governor of Kherson thought his duty in the matter
clear ; he set the prisoners free. When the Black Clergy of
his province stormed upon him, as a man abetting heresy and
schism, he quoted Paragraph 11 in his imperial master's min-
ute on the treatment of Dissent ; a paragraph laying down the
rule that every man is free to believe as he likes, so long as he
abstains from troubling his neighbors by attempting to con-
vert them to his creed. The prince added a recommendation
of his own, that the clergy of his province should strive in
their own vocation to bring these wanderers back into the fold
of God.

NON-PAYEES OF RENT.

Near Kasan I hear of a new sect having sprung up in
the province of Viatka, which is giving the ministry much
trouble. It may have been the fruit of poor Adrian Push-
kin's labor (though I have not heard his name in connection
Avith it) ; the main doctrine of the Non-payers of Rent being
the second article of Pushkin's creed.

The canton of Mostovinsk, in the district of Sarapul, is the
scene of this rising of poor saints against the tyrants of this
world. Viatka, lying on the frontiers of Asia, with a mixed
population of Russ, Finns, Bashkirs, Tartars, is one of the
most curious provinces of the empire. Every sort of religion
flourishes in its difficult dales; Christian, Mussulman, Bud-
dhist, Pagan ; each under scores of differing forms and names.
Twenty Christian sects might be found in this single province ;

10

1-16 Fkee Russia.

and as all aliens and idolaters living there have the right of
being ruled by their own chiefs, it is not easy for the police to
follow up all the clues of discovery on which they light. But
such a body as the Non-payers of Rent could hardly conceal
themselves from the public eye. If they were to live their life
and obey their teachers, they must come into the open day,
avow their doctrine, and defend their creed. Such was the
necessary logic of their conversion, and when rents became
due they refused to j^ay. The debt was not so much a rental,
as a rent-charge on their land. Like all crown-peasants (and
these reformers had been all crown-peasants), they had received
their homesteads and holdings subject to a certain liquidating
charge. This charge they declined to meet on religious
grounds.

Alarmed by such a revolt, the Governor of Viatka wrote to
St. Petersburg for orders. He was told, in answer, to make
inquiries ; to arrest the leaders ; and to watch w^ith care for
signs of trouble. Nearly two hundred Non-payers of Rent
vi^ere seized by the police, parted into groups, and put under
question. Some were released on the governor's recommenda-
tion ; but when I left the neighborhood, twenty-three of these
Non-paying prisoners were still in jail.

They could not see the error of their creed ; they would not
promise to abstain from teaching it ; and, worst of all, they
obstinately declined to bear the stipulated burdens on their
land.

What is a practical statesman to do with men Avho say their
conscience will not suffer them to pay their rent?

CHAPTER XXVI.

MOKE NEW SECTS,

On my arrival in the province of Simbirsk, every one is
talking of a singular people, whose proceedings have been re-
cently brought to light. ' One Peter Mironoff, a private soldier
in the Syzran regiment, has set up a new religion, which is to
be professed in secret and to have no name. Peter is known

Moke New Sects. 147

as a good sort of man ; jDious, orderly, sedate ; a soldier never
absent from his drill ; a penitent who never shirked his priest.
Nothing fantastic was expected from him. It is said that he
began by converting fourteen of his comrades, all of whom
swore that they would hold the truth in private, that they
would act so as to divdrt suspicion, that they would suffer ex-
ile, tortui'e, death itself, but never reveal the gospel they had
heard.

Not being a learned man, and having no respect for books,
Peter rejects all rituals, derides all services, tears uj) all lives
of saints. He holds that reading and writing are dangerous
things, and takes tradition and a living teacher for his guides.
Though waging war against icons and crosses, on which he
stamps and frowns in his secret rites, he ostentatiously hangs
a silver icon in his chamber, and wears a^ copper cross sus-
pended from his neck. Teaching his pupils that true religion
lies in a daily battle with the flesh, he urges them to fast and
fast ; abstaining, when they fast, from every kind of food, so
as not to mock the Lord ; and when they indulge the senses,
to reject as luxuries unfit for children of grace such food as
meat and wine, as milk and eggs, as oil and fish. He warns
young people against the sin of marriage, and he bids the mar-
ried people live as though they were not ; urging them to lead
a life of purity and peace, even such as the angels are sup-
posed to lead in heaven. By day and night he declares that
the heart of man is full of good and evil; that the good may
be encouraged, the evil discouraged ; that fasting and prayer
are the only means of driving out the evil spirits which enter
into human flesh.

The men whom Peter has drawn into order reject all mys-
teries and signs; they wash themselves in quass, and then
drink the slops. They live in peace with the world, they help
each other to get on, and they implicitly obey a holy virgin
Avhom they have chosen for themselves.

This virgin, a peasant-woman named Anicia, living in the
village of Perevoz, in the province of Tambof, is their actual
ruler ; one who is even higher in authority than Peter Mironoff
himself. Anicia has been married about nineteen years.
Fallen man, they say, can only have one teacher ; and that one
teacher must be a woman and a virgin. After Anicia, they

148 . Free Eussia.

recognize the Saviour and St. Nicolas as standing next in
rank.

Their service, held in secret, with closed doors and shutters,
begins and ends with songs ; brisk music of the romping sort,
accompanied by jumping, hopping, twirling ; and a part of
their Avorship has been borrowed from' the Tartar mosques.
They stand in prayer. They bow to the ground in adoration.
They make no sign of the cross. Instead of crying " Save
me, pardon me. Mother Mary !" they cry " Save me, pardon
me. Mother Anicia Ivanovna !"

Like all the sectaries, these Nameless Ones reject the offi-
cial empire and the official church.

A long time passed before Peter and his fellows were be-
trayed to the police, and now that the prophet and virgin
have been seized, attempts are made to pass the matter by as
a harmless joke. The Government is puzzled how to act ;
nearly all the men and women accused of belonging to this
lawless and blasphemous sect being known through the prov-
ince of Simbirsk for their sober and decent lives. The lead-
ers are noted men, not only as church-goers, but supporters
of the clergy in their struggles against the world. Every
man whom the police has seized on suspicion holds a certifi-
cate from his priest, in \vhich his regularity in coming to con-
fess his sins and receive the sacrament is duly set forth and
signed. Nay, more, the parish priests come forward to testi-
fy in their behalf ; for in a society which does not commonly
regard priests with favor, the men who are now accused of
irreligion have set an example of respect for God's ministers
by asking them, on suitable occasions, to their homes.

Mother Anicia, arrested in her village, has been put under
the severest trials ; yet nothing has been found against her
credit and her fame. She is forty years old. She has been
married nineteen years. A medical board, appointed by the
governor, reports that she is still a virgin, and her neighbors,
far and near, declare that she has lived amongst them a j)er-
fectly blameless life.

The police are not yet beaten in their game. An agent of
their own has sworn to having been present in one of the
sheds in which they conducted their indecent rites. Peter
Mironoff, he declares, took down the ordinary icons from the

More New Sects. 149

wall, spat on them, cursed them, banged them on the floor,
leaped on them, and ground them beneath his feet. After
cursing the images, Mironoff kneaded a pecuhar cake of ash-
es, foul water, and paste, in mockery of the sacred bread, and
gave to every man in the shed a piece of this cake to eat.
When they had eaten this cake, he called on them to strip,
each one as naked as when he was born — garments being a
sign of sin; and when they had aU obeyed his words he bade
them sing and pray together, in testimony against the world.

Each man, says this agent, is bound by the rules to choose
for himself a bride of the Spirit, with Avhom he must live in
the utmost purity of life.

What can a reforming minister do in such a case ? A ju-
rist would be glad to leave such folk alone; but the Holy
Governing Synod will not suffer them to be left alone. Peter
and Anicia remain in jail; their case is under consideration;
and the model soldier and blameless villager will probably end
their days in a Siberian mine.

COUNTERS.

In the province of Saratof, a wild steppe country, lying be-
tween the lands of the Kalmuks and the Don Kozaks, I hear
of a new sect, called the Counters or Enumerators (Chislenni-
ki). The high-priest of this congregation is one Taras Max-
im, a peasant of Semenof, one of the bleak log villages in the
black-soil country.

Taras speaks of having been out one night in a wood, when
he met a venerable man, holding in his hands a book. This
book had been given to the old man by an angel, and the old
man offered to let Taras read it. Parting the leaves, he
found the writing in the sacred Slavonic tongue, and the
words a message of salvation to all living men. The book
declared that the people of God must be counted and set
apart from the world. It spoke of the Official Church as the
Devil's Church. It showed that men have confused the or-
der of time, so as to profane with secular work the day orig-
inally set apart for rest; that Thursday is the seventh day,
the true Sabbath, to be kept forever holy in the name of God.
It mentioned saints and angels with contempt ; denounced
the official fasts as works of Satan ; and proclaimed in future

150 Free Eussia.

only one fast a year. It spoke of the seven sacraments as de- •
lusions, to be -wholly banished from the Church of God. It
said the priesthood was unnecessary and unlawful ; eveiy man
was a priest, empowered by Heaven to confess penitents, to
read the service, and inter the dead.

Having read all these things, and some others, in the book,
Taras !Maxim left his venerable host in the wood, and going
back into Semenof, told a fi'iend what he had seen and learn-
ed. Men and women listened to his tale, and, being anxious
for salvation, they counted themselves o££ from a corrupt so-
ciety, and founded the Secret Semenof Church.

So far as I could learn — the sect being xmlawful, and the
rites performed in private — one great purpose seems to in-
spire these Counters ; that of pouring contempt, in phrase
and gesture, on the fonns of legal and official life. Some-
times, I can hardly doubt, they carry this protest to the
length of indecent riot. Holding that Sunday is not a holy
day, they meet in their sheds and barns on Sunday morning,
whUe the village pope is saying mass, and having closed the
door and planted watchers in the street, they sing and dance,
they gibe and sneer ; using, it is said, the roughest Biblical
language to denounce, the coarsest Oriental methods to defile,
the neighbors whom they regard as enemies of God.

Semenof stands east of Jerusalem, and even east of Mecca.

Maxim's chief theological tenet refers to sin. Man has to
be saved from sin. Unless be sins, he can not be saved. To
commit sin, is therefore the first step towards redemption.
Hence it is inferred by the police that Maxim and his pupUs
rather smile on sinners, especially on female sinners, as per-
sons who are likely to become the objects of peculiar grace.
Outside their body, these Counters are regarded, even by lib-
eral men, as an immoral and unsocial sect.

XAPOLEOXISTS.

In Moscow I hear of a body of worshippers who have the
singular quality of drawing their hope from a foreign soil.
Tliese men are Xapoleonists. Like all the dissenting sects,
they hate the official empire and deride the Official Church.
Seeing that the chief enemy of Russia in modern times was
Xapoleon, they take him to have been, literally, that Messiah

The Popular Church. 151

"which he assumed to be, in a certain mystical sense, to the
oppressed and divided Poles ; and they have raised the Cor-
sican hero into the rank of a Slavonic god.

Their society is secret, and their worship private. That
they live and thrive, as an organized society, is affirmed by
those who know their countiy well. Their meetings are held
■with closed doors and windows, under the very eyes of the
police ; but this is the case with so many sects in Moscow,
that their immunity from detection need excite no wonder in
our eyes. Making a sort of altar in their room, they place on
it a bust of the foreign prince, and fall on their knees before
it. Busts of Xapoleon are found in many houses ; in none
more frequently than in those of the imperial race. I have
been in most of these imperial dwellings, and do not recollect
one, fi'om the Winter Palace to the Farm, in which there was
not a bust of their splendid foe.

The Xapoleonists say their Messiah is still alive, and in the
flesh ; that he escaped from the snares of his enemies ; that
he crossed the seas from St. Helena to Central Asia ; that he
dwells in Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal, on the borders of Chi-
nese Tartary ; that in his own good time he will come back
to them, heal their sectional quarrels, raise a great army, and
put the partisans of Satan, the reigning dynasty and acting
ministers, to the sword.

CHAPTEPv XX^^I.

THE POPULAK CUUECH.

These secret sects and parties would be curious studies —
and Uttle more — if they stood apart, and had to Hve or die by
forces of their own. In such a case they would be hardly
more important than the English Levellers and the Yankee
Come-outers; but these Russian dissidents are symptoms of
a disease in the imperial body, not the disease itself. They
live on the popular aversion to an official church.

It is not yet understood in England and America that a
Popular Church exists in Russia side by side with the Offi-

152 Fkee Eussia.

cial Church. It is not yet suspected in England and America
that this Popular Church exists in sleepless enmity and eter-
nal conflict with this Official Church. Yet in this fact of
facts lies the key to every estimate of Russian progress and
Kussian power. ,

This Popular Church consists of tlie Old Believers ; men
who reject the pretended "reforms" of Patriarch Nikon, and
follow their fathers in observing the more ancient rite. " You
will find in our country," said to me a priest of this ancient
faith, " a Church of Byzantine, and a Church of Bethlehem ;
a new voice and an old voice ; a system framed by man, and
a gospel given by God."

No one has ever yet counted the men who stand aloof from
the State Church as Old Believers. By the Government they
have been sometimes treated in a vague and foolish way as
dissenters; though the governments have never had the
courage to count them as dissenters in the official papers.
Known to be sources of weakness in the empire, they have
been hated, feared, cajoled, mahgned; observed by spies, ar-
rested by police, entreated by ministers; every thing but
counted; for the governments have not dared to face the
truths which covmting these Old Believers would reveal. A
wiser spirit rules to-day in the Winter Palace ; and this great
question — greatest of all domestic questions — is being stud-
ied under all its lights. Already it is felt in governing cir-
cles— let the monks say what they will — that nothing can be
safely done in Russia, unless these Old Believers like it. Ev-
ery new suggestion laid before the Council of Ministers is
met (I have been told) by the query — " What will the Old
Believers say?"

The points to be ascertained about these Old Believers are
these ; How many do they count ? What doctrines do they
profess? What is their present relation to the empire?
What concessions would reconcile them to the country and
the laws ?

How many do they count ?

A bishop, who has travelled much in his country, tells me
they are ten or eleven millions strong. A minister of state
informs me they are sixteen or seventeen millions strong.
" Half the people, even now, are Old Believers," says a priest

The Popular Church. 153

from Kein ; " moi-e than three-fourths will be, the moment we
ai*e free." My own experience leads me to think this priest
is right. " I tell you what I .find in going through the coun-
try," writes to me a German who has lived in Russia for
thirty years, knowing the people well, yet standing free (as a
Lutheran) from their local brawls ; " I find, on taking the
population, man by man, that foio' jjersons in five are either
Old Believers now, or would be Old Believers next week, if
it were understood among them that the Government left
them free." This statement goes beyond my point; yet I
see good reason every day to recognize the fact — so long con-
cealed in oflicial papers — that the Old Believers are the Rus-
sian people, while the Orthodox Believers are but a courtly,
ofiicial, and monastic sect.

Nearly all the northern peasants are Old Believers ; nearly
all the Don'Kozaks are Old Believers; more than half the
population of Nijni and Kazan are Old Believers; most of
the Moscow merchants are Old Believers. Excepting princes
and generals, who owe their riches to imperial favor, the
wealthiest men in Russia are Old Believers. The men Avho
are making money, the men who are rising, the captains of
industry, the ministers of commerce, the giants of finance — in
one word, the men of the instant future — are members of the
Poj)ular Church.

Driving through the streets of Moscow, day by day, ad-
miring the noble houses in town and suburb, your eye and ear
are taken by surprise at every turn. " Whose house is this ?"
you ask. "Morozofs." "What is he?" "Morozof! why,
sir, Morozof is the richest man in Moscow; the greatest mill-
owner in Russia. Fifty thousand men are toiling in his mills.
He is an Old Believer."

"Who lives here?" " Soldatenkof." "What is he!" "A
great merchant ; a great manufacturer ; one of the most j^ow-
erful men in Russia. He is an Old Believer."

" Who lives in yonder palace ?"

"Miss Rokhmanof. In London you have such a lady;
Miss Burdett Coixtts is richer, perhaps, than Miss Rokhman-
of, but not more swift to do good deeds. Her house, as you
see, is big ; it has thirty reception-rooms. She is an Old Be-
liever." So you drive on from dawn to dusk. You go into

154: Free Russia.

the bazar — to find Old Believers owning most of the shops ;
you go into the University — to find Old Believers giving most
of the burses ; you go into the hospitals — to find Old Be-
lievers feeding nearly all the sick. The old Russ virtues —
even the old Russ vices — will be found among these Old Be-
lievers ; not among the polite and enervated followers of the
ofticial form. "In Russia," said to me a judge of men, " so-
ciety has a ritual of her own ; a ritual for the palace, for the
convent, for the camp ; a gorgeous ritual, fit for emperors and
princes, such as the iDurple-born might offer to barbai-ic kings,
not such as fishermen in Galilee would invent for fishermen
on the Frozen Sea."

An Old Believer clings to the baldest forms of village wor-
ship, and the simplest usages of village life. Conservative in
the bad sense, as in the good, he objects to every new thing,
whether it be a synod of monks, a cajjital on foreign soil, a cuji
of tea sweetened with sugar, a city lit by gas. Show him a
thing unknown to his fathers in Nikon's time, and you show
him a thing which he will spurn as a work of the nether
fiend.

These Old Believers are as much the enemies of an oflicial
empire as they are of an official church. The test of loyalty
in Russia is praying for the reigning prince as a good Emper-
or and a good Christian; but many of these Old Believers
will not pray for the reigning prince at all. Some will pray
for him as Tsar, though not as Emperor ; but none Avill pray
for him as a Christian man. They look on him as reigning
by a dubious title and a doubtful right. The word emperor,
they say, means Chert — Black One ; the double eagle an evil
spirit ; the autocracy a kingdom of Antichrist.

All this confusion in her moral and political life is traceable
to the times of Nikon the Patriarch ; a person hardly less im-
portant to a modern observer of Russia, than the great prince
who is said by Old Believers to have been his bastard son.

About the time when our own Burton and Prynne were be-
ing laid in the pillory, when Hampden and Cromwell were be-
ing stayed in the Thames, a man of middle age and sour ex-
pression landed from a boat at Solovetsk to pray at the shrine
of St. Philip, and beg an asylum from the monks. He de-
scribed himself as a peasant from the Volga, his father as a

The Popular Church. 155

field laborer in a village noai' Nijni. He was a married
man and his Avife was still alive. In his youth he had spent
some time in a monastery, and after trying domestic life for
ten years, he had persuaded his partner to become a bride of
Christ. Leaving her in the convent of St. Alexie in Moscow,
he had pushed out boldly into the frozen north.

At that time certain hermits lived on the isle of Anzersk,
where the farm now stands, in whose " desert " this stranger
found a home. There he took the cowl, and the name of
Nikon ; but his nature was so rough, that he was soon engaged
in bickering with his chief as he had bickered with his wife.
Eleazai*, founder of the desert, desired to build a church of
stone in lieu of his church of pines, and the two men set out
for Moscow to collect some funds. They quarrelled on their
road; they quarrelled on their return. At length, the breth-
ren rose on the new-comer, expelled him from the desert,
placed him in a canoe, with bread and Avater, and told him to
go whither he pleased, so that he never came back. Chance
threw him on shore at Ki, a rock in Onega Bay ; Avhere he set
up a cross, and promised to erect a chapel, if the virgin whom
he served would help him to get rich.

On crossing to the main land, he became the organizer of a
band of hermits on Leather Lake (Kojeozersk) in the prov-
ince of Olonetz. From Leather Lake he made his spring into
power and fame ; for having an occasion to see the Tsar Alexie
on some business, he so impressed that very poor judge of
men that in a few years he was raised to the seats of Archi-
mandrite, Bishop, Metropolite, and Patriarch.

Combining the pride of Wolscy with the subtlety of Cran-
mer, Nikon set his heart on governing the Church w'ith a
sharper rod than had been x;sed by his faint and shadowy pre-
decessors. A burly fellow, flushed of face, red of nose, and
bleary of eye, Nikon resembled a Friesland boor much more
than a Moscovite monk. He revelled in pomp and show ; he
swelled with vanity as he sat enthroned in his cathedral near
the Tsar. Feeling a priest's delight in the splendor of the
Byzantine clergy, even under Turkish rule, he sought to model
his own ceremonial rites on those of the Byzantine clergy, not
aware that in going back to the Lower Empire he was seek-
ing guidance from the Greeks in their corruptest time. His

156 Fkee Eussia.

earlier steps were not tinwise. Sending out a body of scribes,
he obtained from Mount Athos copies of the most ancient and
authentic sacred books, which he caused to be translated into
Slavonic and compared with the books in ordinary use ; and
finding that errors had crept into the text, he bade his scribes
prepare for him a new edition of the Scriptures and Rituals,
in which the better readings should be introduced. But here
his merit ends. Nikon knew no Greek ; yet when the work
was done for him by others, he proceeded, with an arrogant
frown on his brow, to force his version on the Church. The
Church objected; Nikon called upon the Tsar. The priests
demurred to this intrusion of the civil j)ower ; and Nikon
handed the protesting clergy over to the police. Alexie lent
him every aid in carrying out his scheme. Yet the opposi-
tion was strong, not only in town and village, but in the
council, in the convent, and in the Church. Peasants and
popes were equally against the changes he proj^osed to make.
The service-books were old and venerable ; they sounded
musical in every ear ; their very accents seemed divine.
These books had been used in their sacred offices time out of
mind, and twenty generations of their fathers had by them
been christened, married, and laid at rest. Why should these
books be thrown aside ? The writings offered in their stead
were foreign books. Nikon said they were better; how
could Nikon know ? The Patriarch Avas not a critic ; many
persons denied that he was a learned man. Instead of trying
to gain support for his innovations, he forced them on the
Church. Nor was he satisfied to deal with the texts alone.
He changed the old cross. He trifled with the sacraments.
He brought in a new mode of benediction. He altered the
stamp on consecrated bread. By order of the Tsar, who could
not see the end of what he was about, the Council adopted
Nikon's reforms in the Church; and these new Scriptures,
these new services, these new sacraments, this new cross, and
this new benediction, were introduced, by order of the civil
power, in every church and convent throughout the land.
The Nikonian Church was recognized as an Official Church.

Most of the people and their parish clergy stood up boldly
for their ancient texts, especially in the far north countries,
where the court had scarcely any power over the thoughts of

The Popular Church. 157

men. The view taken in the north appears to have been
something like that of our Englisli Puritans when judging the
merits and demei'its of King James's version : they tliought
the new Scriptures rather too worldly in tone ; over-just to
high dignitaries in Church and State ; less likely to promote
holy living and holy dying than the old. In a word, they
thought them too iDolitical in their accent and their spirit.

No convent in the empire showed a sterner will to reject
these innovations than the great establishment in the Frozen
Sea, When Nikon's service-books arrived at Solovetsk, the
brethren threw them aside in scorn. The Archimandrite, as
an officer of state, took part with the Patriarch and the Tsar ;
but the fathers put their Archimandrite in a boat and carried
him to Kem. Having called a council of their body, they
chose two leaders ; Azariah, whom they elected caterer ; and
Gerontie, whom they elected bursar. All the Kozaks in the
fortress joined them; and, supported from the mainland by
people who shared their minds, the monks of Solovetsk main-
tained their armed revolt against the Nikonian Church for up-
ward of ten years, and only fell by treachery at last.

In Orthodox accounts of this siege the captors are repre-
sented as behaving as men should behave in war. They are
said to have put to the sword only such as they took in arms ;
and borne the rest away from Solovetsk, to be placed in con-
vents at a distance till they came to a better mind. But many
old books, possessed by peasants round the Frozen Sea, put
another face on such tales. A peasant, living in the Delta,
pulled up a book from a well under his kitchen floor, and
showed me a passage in red and black ink, to the effect that
the whole brotherhood of resisting monks was put to the
sword and perished to a man.

What the besiegers won, the nation lost. This victory
clove the Church in twain, and the end of Nikon's triumph
has not yet been reached.

158 Free Kussia.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

OLD BELIEVERS.

The new service-books and crosses were ordered to be used
in every Church. The Church which used them Avas declared
official, orthodox, and holy. Every other form of public wor-
ship was put under curse and ban.

Princes, Vladikas, generals, all made haste to pray in the
form most i)leasing to their Tsar. Cajoled and terrified by
turns, the monks became in a few years orthodox enough ;
and many of the parish priests, on being much pressed by the
police, marched over to the stronger side. Not all; not
nearly all ; for thousands of the country clergymen resisted all
commands to introduce into their services these suspected
books; contending that the changes wrought in the sacred
texts were neither warranted by fact nor justified by law.
They treated them as the daring labor of a single man. Not
all of those who held out against Nikon could pretend to be
scholars and critics ; but neither, they alleged, was Nikon
himself a scholar and a critic. When he came to Solovetsk
he was an ignorant peasant, too old to leai-n ; when he was
driven from Anzersk by his outraged brethren, he was as ig-
norant of letters as when he came. Since that time he had
led a life of travel and intrigue. If they were feeble judges,
he was also a feeble judge.

Clinging fast to their venerable forms, the clergy kept their
altars open to a people whom neither soldiers nor police could
drive to the new matins and the new mass. Many of the
burghers, most of the peasants, doggedly refused to budge
from their ancient chapels, to forego their favorite texts.
They were Old Believers ; they were the Russian Church ;
Nikon was the heretic, the sectarian, the dissident ; and,
strong in these convictions, they set their teeth against every
man who fell away from the old national rite to the new offi-
cial rite.

Old Believers. 159

From those evil times, the people have been parted into two
hostile camps ; a camp of the Ancient Faith, and a camp of
the Orthodox Faith ; a parting which it is no abuse of Avords
to describe as the heaviest blow that has ever fallen npon this
nation ; heavier than the Polish invasion, heavier than the Tar-
tar conquest ; since it sets brother against brother, and puts
their common sovereign at the head of a persecuting board of
monks.

One consequence of these Old Believers being driven into
relations of enmity towards the Government is the weakening
of Russia on every side. The Church is shorn of her native
strength ; the civil power usurps her functions ; and the man
who brought these evils on her was deposed from his high
rank. Nikon was hardly in his grave before the office of
Patriarch was abolished ; and the Church was virtually ab-
sorbed into the State. The Orthodox Church became a Po-
litical Church ; extending her limits, and ruling her congrega-
tions by the secular arm. Imperious and intolerant, she al-
lows no reading of the Bible, no exercise of thought, no free-
dom of opinion, within her pale. The Old Believers suffer, in
their turn, not only from the persecutions to which their
" obstinacy " lays them open, but from the isolation into
which they have fallen.

From the moment of their protest down to the present
time, these Old Believers have been driven, by their higher
virtues, into giving an unnatural prominence to ancient habits
and ancient texts. Living in an old world, they see no merit
in the new. According to their earnest faith, the reign of
Antichrist began with Nikon ; and since the time of Nikon
every word spoken in their country has been false, every act
committed has been wrong.

Like a Moslem and like a Jew, an Old Believer of the se-
verer classes may be known by sight. " An Old Believer ?"
says a Russian friend, as we stand in a posting-yard, watching
some pilgrims eat and drink ; " an Old Believer ? Yes."

" How do you read the signs ?"

" Observe him ; see how he puts the potatoes from him
with a shrug. That is' a sign. He eats no sugar with his
glass of tea ; that also is a sign. The chances are that he
will not smoke."

160 Fkee Eussia.

" Are all these notes of an Old Believer ?"

"Yes; in these northern parts. At Moscow, Nijni, and
Kazan, you will find the rule less strict — especially as to
drinking and smoking — least of all strict among the Don Ko-
zaks."

" Are the Don Kozaks Old Believers ?"

" Most of them are so ; some say all. But the Government
of Nicolas strove very hard to bring them round ; and seeing
that these Kozaks live under martial law, their officers could
press them in a hundred ways to obey the wishes of their
Tsar. Their Atamans conformed to the Emperor's creed;
and many of his troopers so far yielded as to hear an official
mass. Yet most of them stood out ; and many a fine young
fellow from the Don country went to the Caucasus, rather
than abandon his ancient rite. You should not trust appear-
ances too far, even among those Don Kozaks ; for it is known
that in spite of all that i^oj^es and police could do, moi'e than
half the Kozaks kept their faith ; and fear of pressing them
too far has led, in some degree, to the more tolerant system
now in vogue."

" You find some difference, then, even as regards adherence
to the ancient rite, betAveen the north country and the south ?"

" It must be so ; for in the north we live the true Russian
life. We come of a good stock ; we live apart from the
world ; and we walk in our fathers' ways. "We never saw a
noble in our midst ; we hold to our native saints and to our
genuine Church."

The signs by which an Old Believer is to be distinguished
from the Orthodox are of many kinds; some domestic —
such as his way of eating and drinking; others devotional —
such as his way of making the cross and marking the conse-
crated bread.

An Old Believer has a strong dislike to certain articles ; not
because they are bad in themselves, but simply because they
have come into use since Nikon's time. Thus, he eats no
sugar; he drinks no wine; he repudiates whisky ; he smokes
no pipe.

An Old Believer of the sterner sort has come to live alone ;
even as a Hebrew or a Parsee lives alone. He has taken hold
of the Eastern doctrine that a thing is either clean or unclean,

A Family of Old Believers. 161

as it may happen to have been toviched by men of another
creed. Hence he must live apart. He can neither break
bread with a stranger, nor eat of flesh which a heretic has
killed. He can not drink from a pitcher that a stranger's lip
has pressed. In his opinion false belief defiles a man in body
and in soul; and when he is going on a journey, he is tor-
tured like a Hebrew with the fear of rendering himself un-
clean. He carries his water-jug and cup, from which no
stranger is allowed to drink. He calls upon his comrades
only, since he dares not eat his brown bread, and drain his
basin of milk in a stranger's house. Yet homely morals cUng
to these men no less than homely ways. An Old Believer is
not more completely set apart from his neighbors of the Or-
thodox rite by his peculiar habits, than by his personal vir-
tues. Even in the north country, where folk ai'e sober, honest,
industrious, far beyond the average Russian, these members
of the Popular Church are noticeable for their probity and
thrift. " If you want a good workman," said to me an English
mill-owner, " take an Old Believer, especially in a flax-mill."

" Why in a flax-mill ?"

" You see," replied my host, " the great enemy of flax is
fire; and these men neither drink nor smoke. In their hands
you are always safe."

CHAPTER XXIX.

A FAMILY OF OLD BELIEVEES.

Ix the forest village of Kondmazaro lives a family of Old
Believers, named Afanasevitch ; two brothers, who till the
soil, fell pines, and manufacture tar. Their house is a pile of
logs ; a large place, with barn and cow-shed, and a patch of
field and forest. These brothers are wealthy farmers, Avith
manly ways, blue eyes, and gentle manners. I'edor and Mi-
chael are the brothers, and Fedor has a young and dainty
wife.

The family of Afanasevitch is clerical, and the two men,
Fedor and Michael, were brought up as priests. On going

11

162 Free Eussia.

into their house you see the signs of their caUing, and on go-
ing into their barn you see a chapel, with an altar and sacred
books.

That barn was built by their grandfather, in evil days, as a
chapel for his flock ; and during many years, the father of
these men — now gone to a better place — kept up, in the pri-
vacy of his farm, the forms of worship which had come down
to him from his sire, and his sire's sire. This barn has no
cupola, no cross, no bell. So far as takes the eye, it is a sim-
ple barn. Inside, it is a quaint little chapel, with screen and
cross, with icon and crown. It has a regular altar, with step
and desk, and the customary pair of royal gates.

The father of Fedor and Michael, following in his father's
wake, appeared to the outside world a farmer and woodman,
while to his faithful j^eople he was a priest of God.

These lads assisted him in the service, while his neighbors
took their turn of either dropping in to mass, or mounting
guard in the lane. His altars were often stripped, his books
put in a well, his pictures hidden in a loft; for the police, in-
formed of what was going on by monkish spies, were often at
his gates. At length a brighter day is dawning on the Popular
Church. A pew prince is on the throne; and under the
"White Tsar, the congregations which keep within the rules laid
down are left in peace.

" You hold a service in this church ?"

" My brother holds it ; not myself," says Fedor, with a
sigh. " My priesthood is gone from me."

" Your priesthood gone ? How can a priesthood go away ?
Is not the law, once a priest always a priest?"

" Yes, in a regular church ; but we are not now a regular
church, with a sacred order and an apostolic grace. We are
a village priesthood only ; chosen by our neighbors to serve
the Lord in our common name."

" How was your personal priesthood lost ?"

" By falling into sin through love. My Avife, though village
born, had scruples about the form of marriage in use among,
our people, and begged me to indulge her weakness on that
point by marrying her in the parish church. It was a proper
thing for her to ask; a very hard tlung for me to grant; for
law and right are here at strife, and one must take his cliance

A Family of Old Believers. 163

of rejecting either man or God. The time is not a reigu of
grace, and nothing that we do is lawful in the sight of Heaven.
We take no sacraments; for the apostolic priesthood has
passed away. No man alive has power to bind and loose, or
even to marry and to shrive."

" Still you marry ?"

" Yes ; outwardly, according to a form ; not inwardly, ac-
cording to the Spirit. Besides, the law does not admit our
form ; the Orthodox say we are not married, and the courts
declare our children basely born. Hence, some of our women
crave to be wedded as the code directs, in the parish church,
by an Orthodox priest. I could not blame poor Mary for her
Aveakness, though she wished me to marry her in a way that
Avould insult my kindred, harass my mother, and cause me to
be removed from my office, and degraded from my rank as
priest. I loved the girl and we went to church."

Fedor stands beside me, tall and lank, with mild blue eyes
and yellow locks, a serge blouse hanging round his figure,
caught at the waist by a broad red belt ; his figure and face
suggesting less of the meek Russ peasant than of the fiery
northern skald. Quaint books, with old bronze clasps and
leather ties, are in his arms. These books he spreads before
me with mysterious silence, i)ointing out passage after passage,
Avritten in a dashing style — partly in red letters, partly in black
— in the dead Slavonic tongue. He looks a very unlikely man
to have lost the world for love.

" Your marriage got you into trouble ?"

" Yes ; a man who marries plunges into care."

" But though you have lost your priesthood, you are not
expelled from the community ?"

" Not expelled in words ; yet I am not received into fellow-
ship ; not having yet performed the necessary acts."

" What acts ?"

" The acts of penitence. Being married, I am not allowed
to pass the church door ; only to stand on the outer steps, sa-
lute the worshippers, and listen to the sacred sounds. I am
expected to stand in the street, bareheaded, through the sum-
mer's sun and the winter frost ; to bend ray knee to every one
going in ; to beg his pardon of my offense ; and to solicit his
prayers at the throne of grace."

164 Free Eussia.

" How long -will your time of penitence last ?"

" Years, years !" he answers sadly ; " if I were rich enough
to do nothing else, I could be purified in six weeks. The pen-
ance is for forty days ; but forty successive days ; and I have
never yet found time to give wp forty days, in any one season, to
the cleansing of my fame. But some year I shall find them."

" How does this failure affect your wife ? Is she received
into the church?"

" If you note this house of God, you will observe a part
railed off behind the screen ; this is the female side, and has
an entrance by a separate door. No woman goes in at the
princij^al gate. The space behind the screen is not consider-
ed as lying within the church ; and there my wife can stand
during service ; bending to our neighbors as they enter, ask-
ing every woman to forgive her offense, and help her in prayer
with her patron saint."

" Are you considered impure ?"

" Yes ; until our peace is made. You see, an Old Believer
thinks that for most people a single life is better than a wed-
ded life. It is the will of God that some should marry, in or-
der that His children shall not die off the earth. Sometimes
it is the will of Satan, that hell may be rei:)lenished wuth fallen
souls. In either case, it is a sign of our lost estate ; an act to
be atoned by penitence and pi-ayer. But getting married is
not the w'hole of our offense. We Avent into the world : we
held communion with the heathen ; and we put ourselves be-
yond the i^ale of law."

" You hold the outer world to be unclean ?"

" In one sense, yes. The world has been defiled by sin.
A man who goes from our village into the world — ^vho cross-
es the river in order to sell his deals and buy white flour —
must purify himself on coming back. He may have to cut
his bread with an unclean knife, to drink his water from an
unclean glass. He carries his knife and cup beneath his gir-
dle for common nse ; yet he may be forced, by accident, to eat
with a strange knife, to drink out of a strange mug. On his
return, he has to stand at the chapel door, and beg the forgive-
ness of every member of the community for his sins."

" Yet you are said to differ from the Orthodox clergy only
in a few points ?"

A Family of Old Believers. 165

" On many points. We differ on the existence of a State
Church ; on the Ploly Governing Synod ; on the number of
sacraments ; on the benediction ; on the cross ; on the service-
books ; on the apostolical succession ; and on many more.
We object to the civil power in matters of faith ; object to
Byzantine pomp in our worship. What we want in our
Church is the old Russian homeliness and heartiness ; priests
who are learned and sober men ; bishops who are actual fa-
thers of their flocks."

" Show me how you give the benediction."

" Christ and His apostles gave the blessing so ; the first and
second finger extended ; the thumb on the third finger ; not
as the Byzantines give it, with the thumb on the first finger.
We follow the usage introduced by Christ."

" You make much of that form ?"

" Much for what it proves ; not much for what it is. Par-
don me, and I will show you. Here is a small bronze figure
of our Lord ; the Avork good and ancient ; older than Nikon,
older than St. Vladimir ; it is said to have come from Kher-
son, on the Black Sea. This figure proves our case against
Nikon the Monk, Avho altered things without reason, only to
l^uff himself out Avith pride. Our Lord, you will observe, is
giving the blessing, just as our saints, from Philip to Vladi-
mir, gave it. The Greek fathers in Bethlehem bless a pilgrim
in this way now. Our form is Syrian Greek, the Orthodox
form is Byzantine Greek."

" And the cross ?"

" We keep the old traditions of the cross. On every an-
cient sjiire and belfry in the land you find a true cross. Ob-
serve the spires in Moscow, Novgorod, and Kief. In places
it has been removed, to make way for the Latin cross ; but
on many towers and steej^les it remains ; a lofty and silent
witness for the truth."

"How do you prove that your cross is the true one ? Think
of it ; the cross was a Roman gibbet : a thing unknown to
either Jew or Greek. Are not the Latins Hkely to have
known the shape of their own penal cross ?"

" All that is true ; but the Holy Cross on Avhich our Lord
expired in the flesh Avas not a common cross, made of two
logs. We knoAv that it Avas built of four different trees :

166 Free Eussia.

cypress, cedar, palm, and oHve ; therefore it must Lave liad
three arms."

" You take no sacraments ?"

" At present, none. We have no priests ordained to bless
the bread and wine. Saved without them ? Yes ; in the
providence of God. Men were saved before sacraments ; Ju-
das Iscariot took tliem and was lost. A sacrament is a good
form, not a saving means."

Fedor is a type of those Old Believers who are said to be
slackening at the joints, in consequence of their present free-
dom frora persecution. He has not learned to smoke ; but
he sees no harm in a pipe, except so far as it might cause a
brother to fail and fall. He does not care for wine ; but he
will toss off his glass of whisky like a genuine child of the
north. Some strict ones in his village drink no tea, having
doubts on their mind Avhether tea came into use before -Ni-
kon's reign ; and nearly all his neighbors refuse to mix sugar
with their food, to put pij)es into their mouths, to plant j^ota-
toes in their soil. Fedor objects to sugar, as being a devil's
offering, purified with blood. Whisky he thinks lawful and
beneficial, St. Paul having commanded Timothy to drink a
little wine — which Fedor says is a shorter name for whisky —
for his stomach's sake. Fedor is willing to obey St. Paul.

Fedor is a Bible-reader. Every phrase from his lips is
streaked with text, and every point in his argument backed
by chapter and verse. Exce^^t in some New England home-
steads, I have never heard such floods of reference and quota-
tion in my life.

" You say your Church has lost the priesthood ?"

" Yes ; oin* priests are all destroyed ; the heavenly gift is
lost, and we are wandering in the desert without a guide.
This is our trial. Our bishops have all died off ; we can not
consecrate a priest ; the consecrating power is in the devil's
camp."

" How can you get back this gift ?"

" By miracle ; in no other way. The priesthood came by
miracle ; by miracle it will be restored."

" In our own day ?"

" No ; we do not hoj^e it. Miracles come in an age of
faith. We are not worthy of such a sign. We have to walk

Cemetery of the Transfiguration. 167

in our fathers' ways ; to keep our children true ; and hope
that they may live into that better day."

" You think the Orthodox rite will be overthrown ?"

" In time. In God's own time His kingdom will be re-
stored ; and Russia will be one peoj^le and one Church."

" What would you like the Government to do ?"

" "We want a free Church ; we want to walk with our fa-
thers ; we want our old Church discipline ; we want our old
books, our old rituals, our old fashions ; we want to read the
Bible in our native tongue."

"Are the Old Believers all of one mind about these
points ?"

" Ila, no ! There are Old Believers and Old Believers. In
the north we are pretty nearly of one mind ; in the south they
are divided into two bodies, if not more. The Government
is active in Moscow ; Moscow being our ancient capital ; and
most of the traders in that city Old. Believers. Ministers are
trying to win them over to the Orthodox Church. Visit the
Cemetery of the Transfiguration near Moscow ; there you will
see what Government has done."

Let us follow Fedor's hint.

CHAPTER XXX.

CEMETERY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.

Four or five miles from the Holy Gate, beyond the walls
of Moscow, in a populous suburb, near the edge of a pool of
water, lies a field containing multitudes of graves — the graves
of people who were long ago struck down by plague. This
field is fenced with stakes, and part of the inclosure guarded
by a wall. "Within this wall stand a hospital and a convent ;
hospital on your left, convent on your right. A huge gate-
way, built of stones from older piles, and quaintly colored in
Tartar panels, opens in your front. Driving up to this gate,
we send in our cards — a councillor of state, an English
friend, and myself — and are instantly admitted by the chief.

" This cemetery," says our friendly guide, " is called Preo-

168 Free Eussia.

brajenski (Transfiguration), from the village close by. In the
plague time (1770) it was steppe, and people threw out their
dead upon it, laying them in trenches, hardly covered with a
pinch of dust. The plague growing Avorse and worse, the
village elder got permission from Emj^ress Catharine to build
a house on the spot, to keep the peace and fumigate the dead.
That house was built among the trenches. Ten years later
(1781), Elia Kovielin, a brickmaker in Moscow, built among
these graves a church, a cloister, and a hosi^ital. This Kovie-
lin was a clever man ; rich in money and in friends ; living in
a fine house, and having the master of police, with governors,
generals, princes, always at his board. Catharine was not
aware of his being an Old Believer ; but her ministers and
courtiers knew him well enough. His house was a church ;
the pictures in his private chapel cost him fifty thousand ru-
bles. Kovielin was a rich man. The monks were afraid of
him, because he had friends at court ; the priests, because he
had the streets and suburbs at his back. Besides, what monk
or priest could rail against a man for building a cemetery for
the dead ? A very clever man ! You have heard the story
of his magic loaf ? You have not ! Then you shall hear it.
Paul the First, becoming aware that this edifice of the Trans-
figuration was an Old Believer's church, resolved to have it
taken down. Kovielin drove to St. Petersburg, and found the
Emperor deaf to his pleas. Voiekof, master of police in Mos-
cow, having the Emperor's orders to pull down tower and
wall, rode out to the cemetery, where he was received by
Kovielin, and on going away was honored by the present of
a convent loaf. A loaf ! A magic loaf ! Voiekof liked that
lump of bread so well, that he went home and forgot to pull
the cemetery about our ears. Folk say that loaf contained a
purse — five thousand rubles coined in gold. Who knows ?
Elia Kovielin was a clcA^er man.

Our guide through the courts and chapels is not an Old
Believer, but an officer of state. In 1852, Nicolas seized the
cemetery, sequestered the funds, and threw the management
into official hands. The hospital he left to the Old Believers ;
for this great hospital is maintained in funds by the gifts of
pious men ; and the Emperor saw that if his officers seized
the hospital, either his budget must be charged with a new

Cemetery of the Transfiguration. 169

burden, or the sick and aged people must be thrown into the
streets. He seized their church, and left them their sick and
aged poor.

" Koviehn's magic loaf was not the best," says the officer
in charge ; " these Old Believers are always rogues. When
Bonaparte was lodging at the Kremlin, they went to him
with gift and speech — the gift, a dish of golden rubles ; say-
ing, they came to greet him, and acknowledge him as Tsar."

" They thought he would deliver them from the tyranny of
monks and priests ?"

" Yes ; tliat was what they dreamt. Xapoleon humored
them like fools, and even rode down hither to see them in
their village. Kovielin was dead ; he would not have done
such things. Napoleon rode round their graves, and ate of
their bread and porridge ; but he could not make them out.
They wanted a White Tsar ; not a soldier in uniform and
spurs. He went away puzzled ; and when he was gone the
rascals took to forging government notes."

" Odd trade to conduct in a cemetery !"

" You doubt me ! Ask the police ; ask any friend in Mos-
cow ; ask the councillor."

" They were susjiected," says the councillor of state, " and
their chapel was suppressed; but these events occurred in a
former reign."

" What became of their chapel ? Was it pulled down ?"

" No ; there it stands. The chapel is a rich one ; Kovielin
transferred to it all those pictures from his private house
which had cost him fifty thousand rubles ; and many rich
merchants of Moscow graced it with works of art. It has
been purified since, and turned into an Orthodox Church."

" An Orthodox Church ?"

" Well, yes ; in a sort of way. You see, the people here
about are Old Believers ; warm in their faith ; attached to
their ancient rites. In numbers only they are strong: ten
millions — fifteen millions — twenty millions ; no one knows
how many. Long oppressed, they have lost alike their love
of country and their loyalty to the Tsar ; some looking wist-
fully for help to the Austrian Kaiser ; others again dreaming
of a king of France. It is of vast political moment to recov-
er their lost allegiance ; and the ministers of Nicolas con-

170 ' Free Eussia.

ceived a plan wliich has been steadily carried out. The Old
Believers are to be reconciled to the empire by — Avhat shall
we say ?"

" A trick ?"

"Well, this is the plan. The chapel is to be declared or-
thodox ; it is to be oj)ened by thirty monks and a dozen
priests ; but the monks are to be dressed in homely calico,
and the ritual to be used is that employed before Nikon's
time."

"You mean me to understand that the Official Church is
willing to adopt the Ancient Rites, if she may do so with her
present priests ?"

" Yes ; the object of the Government is to prove that cus-
tom, not belief, divides the Ancient from the Orthodox
Church."

" It is an object that compels the Government to meet the
Old Believers more than half-way ; for to give up Nikon's
ritual is to give up all the principle at stake. Has the exper-
iment of an Orthodox priest performing the Ancient Kite suc-
ceeded in bringing people to the purified church ?"

" Old Believers say it has completely failed. The chapel is'
now divided from the hospital by a moral barrier; and out-
side people scorn to pass the door and fall into what they call
a trap. Last year the chiefs of the asylum prayed for leave
to build a new wall across this courtyard, cutting of£ all com-
munication with what they call their desecrated shrine. The
home minister saw no harm in their request ; but on sending
their petition to the Holy Governing Synod, he met a firm re-
fusal of the boon. The Popular Church has nothing to ex-
pect from these mitred monks."

On passing into this " desecrated shrine," we find a sombre
church, in which vespers are being chanted by a dozen monks,
without a single soul to listen. Most of these monks are aged
men, with long hair and beards, attired in black calico robes,
and wearing the ancient Russian cowl. Each monk has a
small black pillow, on which he kneels and knocks his head.
Church, costume, service, every point is so arranged as to take
the eye and ear as homely, old and weird, in fact, the Ancient
Rite.

" Do any of the Old Believers come to see you ?"

Cemetery of the Transfiguratiox. 171

" Yes, on Sundays, many," says the chief pope ; " for on
Sundays we allow them to dispute in church, and they are
fond of disjjuting with us, phrase by phrase, and rite by rite.
Five or six hundred come to us — after service — to hear us
questioned by their popes. We try to show them that we all
belong to one and the same Church; that the difference be-
tween us lies in ceremony and not in faith."

" Have you made converts to that view ?"

" In Moscow, no ; in Yilua, Penza, and elsewhere, our work
of conciliation is said to have been more blessed."

" Those places are a long way off."

" Yes ; bread that is scattered on the waters may be found
in distant parts."

When I ask in official quarters, on what pretense the Em-
peror Nicolas seized the Popular Cemetery, the answer is —
that under the guise of a cemetery, the Old Believers were es-
tablishing a college of their faith ; from which they were
sending forth missionaries, full of Bible learning, into other
provinces ; and that these priests and elders were attracting
crowds of men from the Orthodox Church into dissent. It
was alleged that they were spreading far and fast ; that the
l^arish priests were favoring them ; and that every public
trouble swelled their ranks. To wit, the cholera is said to
have changed a thousand Orthodox persons into Old Believ-
ers every week. If it had raged two years, the Orthodox
faith Avould have died a natural death. For in cases of pub-
lic panic the Russian people have an irresistible longing to
fall back uj^on their ancient ways. It is the cry of Hebrews
in dismay : " Your tents ! back to your tents !" All Eastern
nations have this homely and conservative passion in their
blood.

"These were the actual reasons," says the councillor of
state ; " but the cause assigned for interference was the
scandal of the forged bank-notes."

" Surely no one believes that scandal ?"

" Every one believes it. Only last year this scandal led to
the perpetration of a curious crime."

" What sort of crime ?"

"At dusk on a wintry day, when all the offices in the
cemetery were closed, a cavalcade dashed suddenly to the

172 Free Eussia.

door. A colonel of gendarmes leaped from a drojki, follow-
ed by a master of police. Four gendarmes and four citizens
of Moscow^ came with tliem. Pushing into the chief office,
they asked to see the strong-box, and to have it oj^ened in their
presence. As the clerk looked shy, the colonel of gendarmes
was sharp and rude. They were accused, he said, of forging
ruble notes, and he had come by order of the Governor-gen-
eral, Prince Vladimir Dolgorouki, to open their strong-box
under the eyes of four eminent merchants and the master of
police. He laid the prince's mandate down; he showed his
own commission ; and then in an imperial tone, demanded to
have the keys ! The keys could not be found ; the treasurer
was gone to Moscow, and would not return that night.
' Then seal your box,' said the colonel of gendarmes ; ' the
jDolice will keep it ! Come to-morrow, with your keys, to
Prince Dolgorouki's house in the Tverskoi Place, at ten
o'clock.' The box was sealed; the police master hauled it
into his drojki ; in half an hour the cavalcade Avas gone.
Next day the treasurer, with his clerk and manager, drove
into Moscow with their keys, and on arriving in the Tverskoi
Place were smitten pale with news that no search for ruble
notes had been ordered by the prince."

"Who, then, was that colonel of gendarmes?"

" A thief ; the master of police a thief; the four gendarmes
were thieves; the four eminent citizens thieves !"

" And what was done ?"

"Prince Dolgorouki sent for Rebrof, head of the police
(a very fine head), and told him what these thieves had done.
' Superb !' laughed Rebrof, as he heard the tale ; and Avhen
the prince had come to an end of his details, he again cried
out, in genuine admiration, ' Ha ! superb ! One man, and
only one in Moscow, has the brain for such a deed. The
thief is Simonoff. Give me a little time, say nothing to the
world, and Simonoff shall be yours.' Rebrof kept his word ;
in three months Simonoff was tried, found guilty on the clear-
est proof, and sentenced to the mines for life. Rebrof traced
him through the cabmen, followed him to his haunts, learned
what he had done with the scrip and bonds, and then arrest-
ed him in a public bath. The money — two hundred thou-
sand rubles — he had shared and spent. ' Siberia,' cried the

Eagoski. 173

brazen rogue, when the judge pronounced his doom, ' Si-
beria is a jolly place ; I have plenty of money, and shall have
a merry time.' Had there been no false reports about the
cemetery, a theft like Simonofli's could hardly have taken
place."

CHAPTER XXXI.

KAGOSKI.

Ragoski, another cemetery of the Old Believers, in the
suburbs of Moscow, has a different story, and belongs to a
second branch of the Popular Church. There is a party of
Old Believers "with priests" and a party " without priests."
Ragoski belongs to the party with priests; Preobrajenski to
the party without priests.

One party in the Popular Church believes that the priest-
hood has been lost; the other party believes that it has been
saved. Both parties deny the Orthodox Church; but the
more liberal branch of the Popular Church allows that a true
priesthood may exist in other Greek communions, by the
bishops of which a line of genuine pastors may be ordained.

" You wish to visit the Ragoski ?" asks my host. " Then
we must look to our means. The chiefs of Ragoski are sus-
picious ; an4 no wonder ; the times of persecution are near
them still. In the reign of Nicolas, the Ragoski was shut up,
the treasury was seized, and many of the M'orshippers were
sent away — no one knows whither; to Siberia, to Archangel,
to Imeritia — who shall say ? Alexander has given them back
their own ; but they can not tell how long the reign of grace
may last. An order from Prince Dolgorouki might come to-
morrow ; their property might be seized, their chapel closed,
their hospital emptied, and their graves profaned. It is not
likely ; it is not probable ; for the favor shown to this ceme-
tery is a part of our general progress, not an isolated act of
imperial grace. But these Old Believers, caring little about
general progress, give the glory to God. If you told them
they are tolerated, as Jews are tolerated, they would think
you mad ; ' The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away ;

174 Fkee Eussia.

blessed be the name of the Lord.' Who among them knows
when the evil day may come? Hence, they suspect a
stranger. Not twenty men in Moscow, out of their own com-
munion, have been within their gates. The cemetery will be
hard to enter ; hard as to enter your own Abode of Love."

By haj^py chance, a gentleman calls while we are talking
of ways and means, who is not only an Old Believer, but an
Old Believer of the branch with priests. A short man, white
and wrinkled, with a keen gray eye, a serious face, and speech
that takes you by its wonderful force and fire, this gentleman
is a trader in the city, living in a fine house, and giving away
in charities the income of a prince. I know one man to whom
he sends every year a thousand rubles, as a help for poor
students at the university. This good citizen is a banker,
trader, mill-owner, what not ; he is able, prompt, adroit ; he
gives good dinners ; and is hand-and-glove with every one in
power. I have heard folks say — by way of parable, no doubt
— that all the police of Moscow are in his pay. You also
hear ■whispers that this banker, trader, what not, is a priest ;
not of the ordained and apostolic order, but one of those
popular priests Avhoni the Synod hunts to death. "Who
knows ?

"You arc an Old Believer," he begins, addressing his
speech to me. " I know that from your book on The Holy
Land ; every word of which expresses the doctrines held by
the Russian Church in her better days."

My host explains my great desire to see the cemetery of
Ragoski. " You shall be welcomed thei'e like a friend. Let me
see ; shall I go with you ? No ; it will be better for yoa to go
alone. The governor, Ivan Kruchinin, shall be there to receive
you. I will Avrite." He dashes off a dozen lines of introduc-
tion, written in the tone and haste of a recognized chief.

Armed with this letter we start next day, and driving
through the court-yards of the Kremlin, have to pull up our
drojki, to allow a train of big black horses to go prancing by.
It is the train of Innocent, metropolite of Moscow, taking the
air in a coach-and-six !

"This Ragoski cemetery," says the councillor of state, as
we push through the China Town into the suburbs, " had an
origin like that of the Transfiguration. It was opened on ac-

Eagoski. 175

count of plague (17V0), not by a single founder, like its rival,
but by a company of pious persons, anxious to consecrate the
ground in which they had already begun to lay their dead.
A chajDel was erected, and a daily service was performed in
that chapel for eighty-six years. Of late, the police are said
to have troubled them very much ; no one knows why ; and
no one dares to ask any questions on such a point. We are
all too much afraid of the gentlemen in cowl and gown."

In about an hour we are at the gates. The place is like a
desert, brightened by one gaudy pile. An open yard and si-
lent office ; a wall of brick ; a painted chapel, in the old Russ
style; a huge tabernacle of plain red brick; a wilderness of
mounds and tombs : this is Ragoski. Not a soul is seen ex-
cept one aged man in homely garb, who is carrying logs of
wood. This man imcaps as Ave drive past; but turns and
Avatches us with furtive eyes. Our letter is soon sent in ;
but we are evidently scanned like pilgrims at Marsaba ;' and
twenty minutes elapse before the governor comes to us, cap
in hand, and begs us to walk in.

A small, round man, with ruddy face and laughing eyes,
and tender, plaintive manner, Ivan Kruchinin is not much like
the men Ave see about — men Avho have a lean, sad look and
fearful eyes, as though they lived in the conscious eclipse of
light and faith. Coming to our carriage-door, he begs us to
step in, and puts his service smilingly at our Avill.

" "What is this ncAV edifice Avith the gay old Tartar lozenges
and bars ?"

"Ugh?" sighs the go A'ernor.

" One of the last efforts made to Avin these Old Believers
OA'er," says the councillor of state. " You see the monks
haA'e gone to Avork Avith craft. The pile is Russ outside, like
hiany old chapels in Moscow; piles Avhich catch the eye and
impress the mind. They call it an Old Believers' Chapel ;
they have built it as the Roman centurion built the Jcavs a syn-
agogue ; and they hold a service in it, as they hold a service
in the Transfiguration ; said and sung by Orthodox popes, but
in the language and the forms employed before Xikon's time."

Inside, the chapel is arranged to suit an Old Believer's taste ;
and every point of ritual, phrase and form is yielded to such
as AA'ill accept the ministry of an Orthodox priest.

176 Free Kussia.

" Do they draw any part of your flock ?"

" Not a soul," says the governor. " A few of those ' with-
out priests,' have joined them in despair ; not many — not a
huntlrecl ; while thousands of their people are coming round
to us."

" These converts, who accept an Orthodox priest and the
ancient ritual, are called the United Old Believers — are they
not ?"

" United ! They — the new schismatics ! We know them
not ; we hate all sects ; and these misguided men are adding
to our country another sect."

Passing the cemetery yards, ascending some broad stone
steps, we stand at a chapel door. This door is closed, and all
around us reigns the silence which befits a tomb. Kruchinin
makes a sign ; his tap is answered from within ; a door swings
back ; and out upon us floats a low, weird chant. Going
through the door, we find ourselves in a spacious church,
columned and pictured, with a noble dome. This is the Old
Believers' church. A few dim lamps are burning on the
shrines ; some tapers flit and mingle near the royal gates ; a
crowd of women kneel on the iron floor, not only in the aisles,
but across the nave. Advancing Avith our guide, up the cen-
tral aisle, we come upon a line of men, some jarostrate on the
ground, some standing erect in prayer. A group of singers
and readers stands apart, in front of the royal gates, with
service-books and candles in their hands, reciting in a sweet,
monotonous drone the ritual of the day.

As a surprise the scene is perfect.

" Who are these readers and singers ?"

" Citizens of Moscow," says the governor ; " bankers, farm-
ers, men of every trade and class."

We stand aside until the service ends — a most impressive
service, with louder prayers and livelier bendings than you
hear and see in Orthodox cathedrals. Then we move about.
" What is the service just concluded ?" Kruchinin bends his
eyes to the ground, and answers, " Only a layman's service ;
one that can be said without a priest. You noticed, perhaps,
that neither the royal gates nor the deaccn's doors were open-
ed?"

" Yes ; how is that ?'

Ragoski. 177

" Our altars have been sealed."

" Your altars sealed ?"

" Yes ; you shall see. Come round this way," and the gov-
ernor leads us to the deacon's door. Sealed ; certainly sealed ;
the door being nailed by a piece of leather to the screen ; and
the leather itself attached by a fresh blotch of official wax. It
looks as if the persecution were come again.

" How can such things be done ?"

" Our Emperor does not know it," sighs the governor, who
seems to be a thoroughly patriotic man ; " it is the doing of
our clerical police. We ask to have the use of our own altar,
in our own church, according to the law. They say we shall
have it, on one condition. They will give us our altar, if we
accept their priest !"

" And you refuse ?"

" What can we do ? Their priests have not been properly
ordained ; they have lost their virtue ; they can not give the
blessing and absolve from sin. We have declined ; our altars
continue sealed ; and our people have to sing and pray, as in
the synagogues of Galilee, without a priest."

" That Avas not always so?"

" In other days we had our clergy, living with us openly in
the light of day ; but when our cemetery was restored to us
by our good Emperor in 1856, some trouble came upon us
from the Synod on the subject of consecration, and we have
not yet lived that trouble down."

"The prelates in St, Isaac's Square object to your priests
receiving ordination at the hands of foreign bishops ?"

" Yes ; they wish us to receive the Holy Spirit from them ;
from men who have it not to give ! We can not live a lie j
and we decline their offer to consecrate our priests."

" You have no popular priests ?" " No."

" If you have no priests, how can you marry and baptize
infants ?"

" According to the law of God,"

" Without a priest ?"

" No ; with a priest. We have a priest for such things ;
though we can not suffer hun to risk Siberia by performing a
piiblic office in our church. Father Anton lives in secret. In
the bazar of Moscow he is known as a merchant, dealing in

12

178 Free Eussia.

grain and stuffs. The world knows nothing else about him ;
even the police have never suspected him of being a priest."

" He is ordained ?"

" You know that some of our brethren live in Turkey and
in Austria, where the Turks and Germans grant them asylums
-which they have not always found at home. A good many
Old Believers dwell in a village, called Bella Krinitza, in the
country lying at the feet of the Carpathians, just beyond the
frontiers of Podolia and Bessarabia. One Ambrosius, a Greek
pi'elate from Bulgaria, visited these refugees, and consecrated
their Bishop Cyril, who is still alive. Cyril consecrated Fa-
ther Anton, our Moscow priest."

" Father Anton marries and christens the members of your
church?"

"He does, in secret. In his w^orldly name he buys and
sells, like any other dealer in his shop."

"You live in hope that the persecution will not come
again ?"

" We live to suffer, and not to yield."

Passing into the hospital, we find a hundred men, in one
large edifice ; four hundred women in a second large edifice.
The rooms are very clean; the beds arranged in rows, the
kitchens and baking houses bright. A woman stands at a
desk, before a Virgin, and reads out passages from the gos-
pels and the psalms. Each poor old creature drops a courtesy
as we pass her bed, and after we have eaten of their bread
and salt, in the common dining-hall, they gather in a line and
cross themselves, bending to the ground, thanking us, as though
we had conferred on them some special grace.

These asylums of the Old Believers are the only free char-
ities in Russia; for the hospitals in towns are Government
works, supported by the state. The Black Clergy does little
for the poor, except to supply them Avith crops of saints, and
bring down persecution on the Poj^ular Church.

On driving back to Moscow, in the afternoon — jDondering
on what we have seen and heard — the lay singers, the clean
asylum, and the sealed-up altar — we arrive under the Kremlin
wall in time to find the mitred monk in our front again, just
dashing with his splendid coach and six black horses through
the Holy Gate !

Dissenting Politics. 179

CHAPTER XXXII.

DISSECTING POLITICS.

The revolution made by Nikon, ending in tlie rnptiu'e of
his Church, gave vast imiDortance to dissenting bodies, while
opening up a field for missionaries and impostors of every
kind. Before his reign as patriarch, the chief dissidents were
the Eunuchs, the Self-burners, the Flagellants, the Sabbath-
keepers, and the Silent Men ; all of whom could trace their
origin to foreign sources and distant times. They had no
strong grip on the public mind. But, in setting up a state
religion — an official religion — a persecuting religion — from
which a majority of the people held aloof, in scorn and fear,
the patriarch provided a common ground on which the wild-
est spirits could meet and mix. Aiming at one rule for all,
the Government put these Old Believers on a level Avith Flag-
ellants and Eunuchs; the most conservative men in Russia
with the most revolutionary men in Europe. All shades of
difference were confounded by an ignorant police, inspired in
their malign activities by a band of ignorant monks. So long
as the persecution lasted, a man who would not go to his par-
ish church, pray in the new fashion, cross himself in the legal
way, and bend his knee to Baal, was classed as a separatist,
and treated by the civil power as a man false to his Emperor
and his God.

Thus the Old Believers came to support such bodies as the
Milk Drinkers and Champions of the Holy Spirit, much as the
old English Catholics joined hands with Quakers and Millen-
nialists in their common war against a persecuting Church.
These dissidents have learned to keep their own secrets, and
to fight the persecutor with his own carnal weapons. They,
too, keep spies. They have secret funds. They place their
friends on the press. They send agents to court whom the
Emperor never suspects. They have relations with monks
and ministers, with bishops and aides-de-camp ; they not un-

180 Free Eussia.

frequently occupy the position of monk and minister, bishop
and aide-de-camp. They go to church ; they confess their
sins ; they help the parish priest in his need ; they give monej'
to adorn convents ; and in some imjjortant cases they don the
cowl and take religious vows. These persons are not easily
detected in their guile; unless, indeed, fanaticism takes with
them a visible shape. In passing through the j^rovince of
Ilarkof, I hear in whispers of a frightful secret having come
to light; no less than a discovery by the police that in the
great monastery of Holy Mount, in that province, a number
of Eunuchs are living in the guise of Orthodox monks !

Eveiy day the council is surjirised by reports that some
man noted for his piety and charity is a dissenter; nay, is a
dissenting poi:)e; though he owns a great mill and seems to
devote his energies to trade.

The reigning Emperor, hating deceit, and most of all self-
deceit, looks steadily at the facts. No doubt, if he could put
these dissidents down he would ; but, like a man of genius,
he knows that he must work in this field of thought by wit
and not by power, "No illusions, gentlemen," From the
first year of his reign he has been asking for true reports, and
searching into the statements made with a steadfast yearning
to find the truth.

What comes of his study is now" beginning to be seen of
men. The Ofiicial Church has not ceased to be official, and
even tyrannical ; but the violence of her persecution is going
down ; the regular clergy have been softened ; the monkish
fury has been curbed ; and lay opinion has been coaxed into
making a first display of strength.

A minute Avas laid by the Emj^eror before his council of
ministers so early as Oct. 15 and 27, 1858, for their future
guidance in dealing with dissenters; under which title the
Holy Governing Synod still classed the Old Believers with
the Flagellants and Eunuchs ! The minute written by his
father was not removed from the books; it was simply ex-
plained and carried forward; yet the change was radical;
since the police, in all their dealings with religious bodies,
were instructed to talk in a gentler tone, and to give accused
persons the benefit of every doubt which should occur on
points of law. A change of spirit is often of higher moment

Dissenting Politics. 181

than a change of phrase. "Without imj^lying that either his
father was wrong, or the Holy Governing Synod unjust, the
Emperor opened a door by which many of the nonconformists
could at once escape. But ^yha,t was done only shows too
plainly hoAV much remains to do. The Emperor has checked
the persecutor's arm ; he has not crushed the persecuting
spirit.

A special committee was named by him to study the whole
subject of dissent ; Avith the practical view of seeing how far
it could be conscientiously tolerated, and in what way it could
be honestly repressed.

This committee made their report in August, 18G4 ; a vo-
luminous document (of which some folios only have been
printed) ; and adopting their report, the Emperor added to
the paper a second minute, which is still the rule of his minis-
ters in dealing with such affairs. In this minute he recog-
nizes the existence of dissent. He acknowledges that dissi-
dents may have civil and religious rights. Of course, as head
of the Church, he can not suffer that Church to be injured;
but he desires his ministers, after taking counsel with the
Holy Governing Synod, and obtaining their consent at every
step, to see that justice is always done.

The spirit of this imperial minute is so good that the monks
attack it ; not in open day and with honest words ; for such
is not their method and their manner ; but with sly sugges-
tions in the confessor's closet and serpentine whispers near
the sacred shrines. It is unpopular Avith the Holy Governing
Synod. But the conservatives and sectaries, long cast down,
look up into Avhat they call a new heaven and a new earth.
They say the day of peace has come, and finding a door of ap-
peal thrown open to them in St. Petersburg, they are sending
in hundreds of petitions ; here requesting leave to open a cem-
etery, there to construct an altar, here again to build a church.
In thirty-two months (Jan. 1866 to Sept. 1868), the home min-
istry received no less than three hundred and sixty-seven pe-
titions of various kinds.

Valouef, the minister in power when this imperial minute
was first drawn up, had a difiicult part to play between his
liberal master and the retrograde monks. Xo man is strong
enough to quarrel with the tribunal sitting in St. Isaac's

182 Free Eussia.

Square ; and Valouef was wrecked bv his zeal in caTT}-ing out
the imperial plan. The minister had to get these fathers to
consent in every case to the petitioner's prayer ; these fathers,
who thought dissenters had no right to live, and kept on quot-
ing to him the edicts of Xicolas, as though that sovereign
were still alive ! On counting his papers at the end of those
thirty-two months of triah Valouef found that out of three
hundred and sixty-seven petitions in his office, the Holy Gov-
erning Synod consented to his granling twenty-one, postpon-
ing fifty, and rejecting aU the rest.

A man, who said he was bom in the Official Church, begged
leave to profess dissenting doctrine, which he had come to
see was right : refused. A merchant offered to build a chapel
for dissenters in a dissenting village : refused. A builder pro-
posed to throw a wall across a convent garden, so as to divide
the male from the female part : refused. A dissenting minis-
ter asked to be relieved from the daily superintendence of his
city police : refused. Michaeloff, a rich merchant of St, Pe-
tersburg, offered to found a hospital for the use of dissenters
near the capital, at his personal charge : refused. Last year
an asylum for poor dissenters was opened at Kluga ; an asy-
lum built by peasants for persons of their class : the Synod
orders it to be dosed.

Hun<ireds of petitions come iu from Archangel, Siberia, and
the Caucasus, from men who were in other days transf'orted
to those districts for conscience' sake, requesting leave to
come back. These petitions are divided by the Holy Govern-
ing Synod, into two groups : (1.) those of men who have been
judged by some kind of court ; (2.) those of men who ha^e
been exiled by a simple order of the police. The first class
are refused in mass without inquiry ; a few of the second class,
after counsel taken with the provincial quorum, are allowed.

From these examples, it will be seen that the Hberal move-
ment is not reckless ; but the movement is along the line : the
work goes on ; and every day some progress is being made.
A minister who has to work with a board of monks must feel
his wav.

COXCILIATIOK. 1S3

CHAPTER XXXm.

coxchjatiox.

Ont: point has been gained in the mere fact of the imperial
minute having drawn a distinction between things which may
be thought and things which may be done. The right of
holding a particular article of faith stands on a different
ground to the right of preaching that article of faith in open
day. The first is private, and concerns one's self ; the second
is public, and concerns the general weaL What is private
only may be left to conscience ; what is public must be al-
ways subject to the law.

The ministers have come to see that every man has a right
to think for himself about his duty to God ; and xmder their
directions the police have orders to leave a man alone, so long
as he refrains from exciting the public mind, and disturbing
the public peace. In fact, the Russians have been brought
into line with their neighbors the Turks.

In Moscow a man is now as free to believe what he likes as
he would be in Stamboul ; though he must exercise his liberty
in both these cities with the deference due from the unit to
the mass. He must not meddle with the dominant creed-
He must not trifle with the followers of that creed ; though
his action on other points may be perfectly free. Having full
possession of the field, the Church will not allow herself to be
attacked ; even though it should please her to fall on you with
fire and sword.

In Moscow, a Mussnlman may try to convert a Jew; in
Stamboul, an Armenian may try to convert a Copt ; but woe
to the Mussulman in Russia who tempts a Christian to his
mosque, to the Christian in Turkey who tempts a Mussulman
to his church ! As on the higher, so it stands on the lower
plane. The right of propagand lies with the ruling power.
In Russia, a monk may try to convert a dissenter ; the dissent-
er will be sent to Siberia should he happen to convert the

18-i Feee Eussia,

monk. A rule exactly parallel holds in Turkey and in Persia,
where a mollah may try to convert a giaour ; but the giaour
will be beaten and imprisoned should he have the misfortune
to convert the mollah.

Some men may fancy that little has been gained so long as
toleration stops at free thought, and interdicts free speech.
In England or America that would seem true and even trite ;
but the rules applied to Moscow are not the rules which
would be suitable in London or New York. The gain is vast
when a man is i^ermitted to say his prayers in peace.

One day last week I came upon striking evidence of the
value of this freedom. Riding into a large village, known to
me by fame for its dissenting virtues, I exclaimed, on seeing
the usual Orthodox domes and crosses — "Not many dissidents
here !" My companion smiled. A moment later we entered
the elder's house. " Have you any Old Believers here ?"

" Yes, many."

" But here is a church, big enough to hold every man, wom-
an, and child in your village."

" Yes, that is true. You find it empty now ; in other times
you might have found it fuU."

"How was that? Were your people drawn away from
their ancient rites?"

" Never. We were driven to church by the police. When
God gave us Alexander we left off going to mass."

" Was the persecution sharp ?"

" So sharp, that only four stout men lived through it ; nev-
er going to church for a dozen years. When Nicolas died,
the police pretended that wo had only those four Old Believ-
ers in this place ; the next day it was suspected, the next year
it was known, that every soul in it was an Old Believer."

All these dissenting bodies are political parties, more or
less openly pronounced ; and have to be dealt with on politi-
cal, no less than on religious grounds. Rejecting the State
Church, they reject the Emperor, so far as he assumes to be
head of that Church. A State Church, they say, is Anti-
christ ; a devil's kingdom, set up by Satan himself in the
form of Nikon the Monk. So far as Alexander is a royal
prince they take him, and even pray for him ; but they will
not place his image in their chapel ; they refuse to pray for

Conciliation. 185

him as a true believer ; and they fear he is dead to religion,
and lost to God.

The Pop^jlar Church contends that since the reign of Peter
the Great every thing has been lawless and provisional. Pe-
ter, they say, was a bastard son of Xikon the Monk ; in other
words, of the devil himself. The first object of this child of
the Evil One being to destroy the Russian people, he aban-
doned the country, and built him a palace among the Swedes
and Finns. His second object being to destroy the Russian
Church, he abolished the oiBce of Patriarch, and made himself
her spiritual chief.

The consequences which they draw from these facts are in-
stant and terrible ; for these consequences touch with a dead-
ly sorcery the business of their daily lives.

Since Satan began his reign in the person of Peter the
Great, all authorities and rules have been suspended on the
earth. According to them, nothing is lawful, for the reign of
law is over. Contracts are waste ; no trust can be executed ;
no sacrament can be truly held ; not even that of marriage.
Hence, it is a matter of conscience with thousands of Old Be-
lievers, that they shall not undei-go the nuptial rite. They
live without it, in the hope of heaven providing them wdth a
remedy on earth for what would otherwise be a wrong in
heaven. And thus their lives are passed in the shadow of a
terrible doom.

The absence of marriage-ties among the best of these Old
Believers is not the most frightful evil. So far as the men
and women are concerned, the case is bad enough ; but as
regards their children, it is w^orse. These children are re-
garded by the law as basely born. "By the devil's law,"
say the Old Believers sadly ; but the fact remains, that under
the Russian code these "bastards" do not inherit their fa-
thers' wealth. In other states, an issue might be found in
the making of a will, by which a father could dispose of his
property to his children as he pleased. But an Old Believer
dares not make a wall. A will is a public act, and he dis-
claims the present public jDowers. The common course is,
for an Old Believer to give his money to some friend whom
he can trust, and for that friend to give it hacJv to his children
when he is no more.

186 Free Eussia.

The Emperor, studying remedies for these grave disorders
among his people, has conceived the bold idea of legalizing in
Russia the system of civil marriage, already established in
every free country of Europe, and in each of the United
States. A bill has been drawn, so as to spare the Orthodox
clergy, as much as could be done. The Council of State is
favorable to this bill ; but the Holy Governing Synod, fright-
ened at all these changes, refuse to admit that a " sacrament "
can be given by a magistrate ; and a bill which would bring
peace and order into a million of households is delayed,
though it is not likely to be sacrificed, in deference to their
monastic doubts.

" What else would you have the Emperor do ?" I ask a
man of confidence in this PojDular Church.

" Do ! Restoi-e our ancient rights. In Nikon's time the
crown procured our condemnation by a council of the East-
ern Churches ; we survive the curse ; and now we ask to have
that ban removed."

" You stand condemned by a council ?"

" Yes ; by a deceived and corruj^ted council. That curse
miist be taken off our heads."

" Is the Government aware of your demands ?"

" It is aware."

" Have any steps been taken to that end ?"

" A great one. Alexander has proposed to remove the
ban ; and even the Synod, calling itself holy, has consented to
recall the curse; but we reject all offers from this band of
monks ; they have no power to bind and loose. The Eastern
Churches put us in the wrong ; the Eastern Churches must
concur to set us right. They cursed us in their ignorance ;
they must bless us in their knowledge. We have passed
through fire, and knoAv our weakness and our strength. No
other method will sufiice. We ask a general council of the
Oriental Church."

" Can the Emperor call that council ?"

" Yes ; if Russia needs it for her peace ; and who can say
she does not need it for her peace ?"

EoADS, 187

CHAPTER XXXIV.

EOADS.

A MAN who loads himself with common luggage would fiud
these Russian roads rather rough, whether his journey lay
through the forest or across the steppe. An outfit for a jour-
ney is a work of art. A hundred things useful to the travel-
ler are needed on these roads, from candle and cushion down
to knife and fork ; but there are two things which he can not
live without — a tea-j^ot and a bed.

My line from the Arctic Sea to the southern slopes of the
Ural range, from the Straits of Yeni Kale to the Gulf of Riga
runs over land and lake, forest and fen, hill and steppe. My
means of travel are those of the country ; drojki, cart, barge,
tarantass, steamer, sledge, and train. The first stage of my
journey from north to south is from Solovetsk to Archangel ;
made in the provision-boat, under the eyes of Father John.
This stage is easy, the gi-ouping pictui-esque, the weather good,
and the voyage accomplished in the allotted time. The second
stage is from Archangel to Yietegra ; done by posting in five
or six days and nights ; a drive of eight hundred versts, through
one vast forest of birch and pine. My cares set in at this sec-
ond stage. There is trouble about the podorojna — paper
signed by the police, giving you a right to claim horses at the
posting stations, at a regulated price. As very few persons
drive to Ilolmogory, the police make a fuss about my papers,
wondering why the gentleman could not sail in a boat up the
Dvina like other folk, instead of tearing through a region in
which there is hardly any road. "Wish to see the birthplace
of Lomonosof ! What is there to see? A log cabin, a poor
tofvn, a scrubby country — that is all ! Yet after some delays
the poIice~give in, the paperTs signed. Then comes the ques-
tion: carriage^_cari^_or_sledge ? No public vehicle runs to
the capital ; nothing but a light cart, just big enough to hold
a bag of letters and a boy. That cart goes twice a week

188 Free Russia

through the forest-tracks, but no one save the boy in charge
can ride with the imperial mail. A stranger has to find his
means of getting forward, and his choice is limited to a cart,
a tarantass, and a sledge.

" A sledge is the thing," says a voice at my elbow ; " but to
use a sledge you must wait until the snow is deej) and the
frost sets in. In summer we have no roads ; in some long
reaches not a path ; but from the day when we get five de-
grees of frost, we have the noblest roads in the world."

" That may be six or seven weeks hence ?"

" Yes, true ; then you must have a tarantass. Come over
with me to the maker's yard."

A tarantass is a better sort of cart, with the addition of
splasTvboard, hood, and step. iFTias^ no springs ; for a car-
riage slung on steel could not be sent through these desert
wastes. A spring might snap ; and a broken coach some
thirty or forty miles from the nearest hamlet, is a vehicle in
w^hich very feAv people would like to trust their feet. A good
coach is a sight to see; but a good coach implies a smooth
road, M'ith a blacksmith's forge at every turn. A man with
rubles in his purse can do many things; but a man with a
million rubles in his purse could not venture to drive through
forest and steppe in a carriage which no one in the country
could repair.

A tarantass lies lightly on a raft of poles ; mere lengths of
green pine, cut down and trimmed with a peasant's axe, and
lashed on the axles of two pairs of wheels, some nine or ten
feet apart. The body is an empty shell, into which you drop
your trunks and traj^s, and then fill up with hay and straw.
A leather blind and apron to match, keep out a little of the
rain ; not much ; for the drifts and squalls defy all efforts to
shut them out. The thing is light and airy, needing no skill
to make and mend. A pole may split as you jolt along ; yoii
stop in the forest skirt, cut down a pine, smooth off the leaves
and twigs ; and there, you have another j^ole ! All damage is
repaired in half an hour.

On scanning this vehicle closely in and out, my mind is
clear that the drive to St. Petersburg should be done in a ta-
rantass— not in a common cart. But I am dreaming all this
while that the tarantass before me can be hired. A sad mis-

EoADS. 189

take ! Xo maker can be found to part from his carriage on
any terms short of j)urchase out and out. " St. Petersburg is a
long way off," says he ; " how shall I get my tarantass back ?"

" By sending your man along with it. Charge me for his
time, and let him bring it home."

The maker shakes his head.

" Too far ! "Will you send him to Yietegra, near the lake ?"

" Ko," says the man, after some little pause, " not even to
Vietegra. You see, Avhen you j^ay of£ my man, he has still to
get back; his journey will be worse than yours, on account
of the autumn rains ; he may sink in the marsh ; he may
stick in the sand ; not to speak of his being robbed by bandits,
and devoured by Avolves."

" He is not afraid of robbers and wolves ?"

" Why not ? The forests are full of wild men, runaways,
and thieves ; and three weeks hence the wolves will be out in
packs. How, then, can he be sure of getting home with my
tarantass ?"

Things look as though the vehicle must be bought. How
much will it cost ? A strong tarantass is said to be worth
three hundred and fifty rubles. But the waste of money is
not all. What can you do with it, when it is yours ? A ta-
rantass in these northern forests is like the Avhite elephant in
the Eastern story. " Can one sell such a thing in Yietegra ?"

"Ha, ha !" laughs my friend. "In Yietegra, the people
are not fools ; in fact, they are rather sharp ones. They will
say they have no use for a tarantass ; they know »y'ou can't
wait to chaffer about the price. Your best plan will be to
drive into a station, pay the driver, and run away."

" Leaving my tarantass in the yard ?"

"Exactly; that will be cheaper in the end. Some years
ago I drove to Yietegra in a fine tarantass ; no one would buy
it from me. One fellow offered me ten kopecks. Enraged
at his impudence, I put up my carriage in a yard to be kept
for me ; and every six months I received a bill for rent. In
ten years' time that tarantass had cost me thrice its original
price. In vain I begged the man to sell it ; no buyer could
be found. I offered to give it him, out and out ; he declined
my gift. At length I sent a man to fetch it home ; but when
my servant got to Yietegra he could find neither keeper nor

190 Free Eussia.

tarantass. He only learned that in years gone by the yard
was closed, and my tarantass sold with the other traps."

A God-speed dinner is the happy means of lifting this cloud
of trouble from my mind. " The man," says our helpful con-
sul, " thinks he will never see his tarantass again. Now, take
my servant, Dimitri, with you ; he is a clever fellow, not afraid
of wolves and runaways ; he may be trusted to bring it safely
back."

" If Dimitri goes with you," adds a friendly merchant, " I
w^ill lend you my tarantass; it is strong and roomy; big
enough for two."

" You Avill !" A grip of hands, a flutter of thanks, and the
thing is done.

" Why, now," cries my host, " you will travel like a Tsar."

This private tarantass is brought round to the gates ; an
empty shell, into which they toss our luggage ; first the hard
pieces — hat-box, gun-case, trunk ; then piles of hay to fill up
chinks and holes, and wisps of straw to bind the mass ; on all
of which they lay your bedding, coats and skins, A wood-
man's axe, a coil of rope, a ball of string, a bag of nails, a pot
of grease, a basket of bread and wine, a joint of roast beef, a
tea-pot, and a case of cigars are afterwards coaxed into nooks
and crannies of the shell.

Starting at dusk, so as to reach the ferry, at which you are
to cross the river by day-break, we plash the mud and grind
the planks of Archangel beneath our hoofs. " Good-bye !
Look out for wolves ! Take care of brigands ! Good-bye,
good-bye !" shout a dozen voices ; and then that friendly and
frozen city is left behind.

All night, under murky stars, we tear along a dreary path;
pines on our right, pines on our left, and pines in our front.
We bump through a village, waking up houseless dogs ; we
reach a ferry, and pass the river on a raft ; we grind over
stones and sand; we tug through slush and bog; all night,
all day; all night again, and after that, all day; winding
through the maze of forest leaves, now burnt and sear, and
swirling on every blast that blows. Each day of our drive
is like its fellow. A clearing, thirty yards wide, runs out be-
fore us for a thousand versts. The pines are all alike, the
birches all alike. The villages are still more like each other

Roads. 191

than the trees. Our only change is in the track itself, which
passes from sandy rifts to slimj/- beds, from grassy fields to
rolling logs. In a thousand versts Ave count a hundred versts
of log, two hundred versts of sand, three hundred versts of
grass, four hundred versts of watei'-way and marsh.

We smile at the Russians for laying down lines of rail in
districts Avhere they have neither a turnpike road nor a coun-
try lane. But how are they to blame ? An iron path is the
natural way in forest lands, where stone is scarce, as in Rus-
sia and the United States.

If the sands are bad, the logs are worse. One night we
spend in a kind of protest ; dreaming that our luggage has
been badly packed, and that on daylight coming it shall be
laid in some easier way. The trunk calls loudly for a change.
My seat by day, my bed by night, this box has a leading part
in our little play; but no adjustment of the other traps, no
stuffing in of hay and straw, no coaxing of the furs and skins
suffice to appease the fretful spirit of that trunk. It slips
and jerks beneath me; rising in pain at every plunge. Coax-
ing it with skins is useless ; soothing it with wisps of straw
is vain. We tie it with bands and belts ; but nothing will in-
duce it to lie down. How can we blame it? Trunks have
rights as well as men ; they claim a proper place to lie in ;
and my poor box has just been tossed into this tarantass, and
told to lie quiet on logs and stones.

Still more fi'etful than this trunk are the lumbar vertebrae
in my spine. They hate this jolting day and night; they
have been jerked out of their sockets, pounded into dust, and
churned into curds. But then these mutineers are under
more control than the trunk; and when they begin to mur-
mur seriously, I still them in a moment by hints of taking
them for a drive through Bitter Creek.

Ha ! here is Ilolmogory ! Standing on a bluff above the
river, pretty and bright, with her golden cross, her grassy
roads, her pink and white houses, her boats on the water, and
her stretches of yellow sands ; a village with open spaces ; here
a church, there a cloister ; gay with gilt and paint, and shan-
ties of a better class than you see in such small country towns ;
and forests of pine and birch around her — Holmogory looks
the very spot on which a poet of the people might be born !

192 Free Kussia.

CHAPTER XXXV.

A PEASANT rOET.

In the grass-grown square of Archangel, between the fire-
tower and the court of justice, stands a bronze figure on a
round marble shaft ; a figure showing a good deal of naked
chest, and holding (Avith a Cupid's help) a lyre on the left
arm. A Roman robe flows down the back. You wonder
what such a figure is doing in such a place ; a bit of false
French art in a city of monks and trade ! The man in whose
name it has been raised was a i:)oet ; a poet racy of the soil ;
a village genius ; who, among merits of many kinds, had the
high quality of being a genuine Russian, and of writing in
his native tongue.

For fifty years Lomonosoff was called a fool — a clever fool
— for having wasted his genius on coachmen and cooks.
Court ladies laughed at his whimsy of writing verses for the
common herd to read ; and learned dons considei*ed him cra-
zy for not doing all his more serious work in French. A
change has come ; the court speaks Russ ; and society sees
some merit in the jDhrases which it once contemned. The
language of books and science is no longer foreign to the
soil ; and all classes of the people have the sense to read and
speak in their musical and copious native speech. This hap-
py change is due to Michael Lomonosoff, the peasant boy !

Born in this forest village on the Dvina bluffs (in 1711), he
sprang from that race of free colonists who had come into
the north country from Novgorod the Great. His father,
Vassili Lomonosoff, a boatman, getting his bread by netting
and spearing fish on the great river, brought him up among
nets and boats, until the lad Avas big enough to slip his chain,
throw down his pole, and push into the outer sea. Not many
books were then to be got in a forest town like Holmogory,
and some lives of saints and a Slavonic Bible were his only
reading for many years. A good priest (as I learn on the

A. Peasant Poet. 193

spot) took notice of the cliilil, and tauglii- him to read the old
Slavonic "wovds. These books he got by heart ; making he-
roes of the Hebrew^ prophets, and reading with ardor of his
native saints. The priest soon taught him all he knew, and
being a man of good heart, he sought around him for the
means of sending the lad to school. But where, in those
dark ages, could a school be found ? lie knew of schools for
priests, and for the sons of priests ; but schools for peasants,
and for the sons of peasants, did not then exist. Could he
be placed with a priest and sent to school ? The village pas-
tor wrote to a friend in Moscow, who, though poor himself,
agreed to take the lad into his house. A train of carts came
through the village on its way to Moscow, carrying fur and
fish for sale ; and the priest arranged Avith the drivers that
Michael should go with them, trudging at their side, and
helping them on the road. At ten years old he left his for-
est home, and walked to the great city, a distance of nearly
a thousand miles.

The priest in Moscoav sent him to the clerical school, where
he learned some Latin, French, and German ; in all of Avhich
tongues, as well as in Russian, he afterwards spoke and Avrote.
He also learned to work for his living as a polisher and setter
of stones. A lad who can dine off a crust of rye bread and a
cup of cabbage broth, is easily fed ; and Michael, though he
stuck to his craft, and lived by it, found plenty of time for the
cultivation of his higher gifts. He was a good artist ; for the
time and place a very good artist ; as the Jove-like head in
the great hall of the University of Moscow proves. This
head — the jjoet's own gift — was executed in mosaic by his
hands.

After learning all that the monks could teach him in Mos-
cow, he left that city for Germany, where he lived some years
as artist, teacher, and professor ; mastering thoroughly the
modern languages and the liberal arts. When he came back
to his native soil he was one of the deepest pundits of his
time; a man of name and proof; respected in foreign univer-
sities for his wonderful sweep and grasp of mind. Studying
many branches of science, he made himself a reputation in
every branch. A Russian has a variety of gifts, and Michael
was in every sense a Russ. While yet a lad it was said of

13

194: Free Eussia.

liim tliat he could mend a net, sing a ditty, drive a cavt, build
a cabin, and guide a boat with equal skill. When he grew
up to be a man, it was said of him with no less truth, that he
could at the same time crack a joke and heat a crucible ; j^ose
a logician and criticise a poet ; draw the human figure and
make a map of the stars. Coming back to Russia with such
a name, he found the world at his feet ; a 23rofessor's chair,
with the rank of a nobleman, and the office of a councillor of
state ; dignities which a i^rofessor now enjoys by legal right.
A strong Germanic influence met him, as a native intruder in
a region of learning closed in that age to the Russ ; but
he joked and pushed, and fought his way into the highest
seats. He not only won a place in the academy which Peter
the Great had founded on the Neva, but in a few years he
became its living soul.

Yet Michael remained a peasant and a Russian all his days.
He drank a great many drams, and was never ashamed of be-
ing drunk. One day — as the members of that academy tell
the tale — he was picked up from the gutter by one who knew
him. " Hush ! take care," said the good Samaritan softly ;
"get up quietly and come home, lest some one of the acad-
emy should see us." " Fool !" cried the tipsy professor,
" Academy ? I am the Academy !"

Not without cause is this proud boast attributed to the
peasant's son ; for Lomonosoff was the academy, at least on
the Russian side. The breadth of his knowledge seems a
marvel, even in days when a special student is expected to be
an encyclopedic man, with the whole of nature for his prov-
ince. He wrote in Latin and in German before iie wrote in
Russ. He was a miner, a physician, and a poet. He Avas a
painter, a carver, and draughtsman. He wrote on grammar,
on drugs, on music, and on t)he theory of ice. One of his
best books is a criticism on the Varegs in Russia ; one of his
best papers is a treatise on microscopes and telescopes. He
wrote on the aurora borealis, on the duties of a journalist, on
the uses of a barometer, and on explorations in the Polar Sea.
In the records of nearly every science and art his name is
found. Astronomy owes him something, chemistry some-
thing, metallurgy something. But the glory of Lomonosoff
was his verse, of which he wrote a great deal, and in many

A Peasant Poet. 195

different styles ; lays, odes, tragedies, an unfinished epic, and
moi-al pieces without end.

The rank of a great poet is not claimed for Michael Lomo-
nosoff by judicious critics. No creation like Oneghin, not
even like Lavretski, came from his pen. His merit lies in the
fact that he was the first Avriter who dared to be Russian in
his art. But though it is the chief, it is far from being the
only distinction which Lomonosoff enjoys, even as a poet.
The mechanism of literature owes to his daring a reform, of
which no man now living will see the end. The Russ are a
religious people, to whom phrases of devotion are as their
daily bread ; but the language of their Church is not the lan-
guage of their streets ; and their books, though calling them-
selves Russ, were printed in a dialect Avhich few except their
popes and the Old Believers could undei'stand. This dialect
Lomonosoff laid aside, and took up m its stead the fluent and
racy idiom of the market and the quay. But he had a poetic
music to invent, as well as a poetic idiom to adapt. The poet-
ry of a kindred race — the Poles — supplied him with a model,
on which he built for the Russ that tonical lilt and flow, Avhich
ever since his time has been adopted by writers of verse as
the most perfect vehicle for their poetic speech.

But greater than his poetic merit is the fact on which
writers like Laraanski love to dwell, that Lomonosoff was a
thorough Russian in his habits and ideas ; and that after his
election into the academy, he set his heart upon nationalizing
that body, so as to render it Russian ; just as the Berlin
Academy was German, and the Paris Academy Avas French.

In his own time Lomonosoff met Avith little encouragement
from the court. That court was German ; the society nearest
it was German ; and German Avas the language of scientific
thought. A Russian was a savage ; and the sj^eech of the
common people AA'as condemned to the bazars and streets.
Lomonosoff introduced that speech into literature and into
the discussions of learned men.

A statue to such a jDcasant marks a period in the nation's
upAvard course. A line on the marble shaft records the fact
that this figure Avas cast in 1829; and a second line states
that it Avas remoA'ed in 1867 to its present site. Here, too, is
progress. Forty years ago, a place behind the courts Avas

196 Feee Russia.

good enough for a poet Avho was also a fisherman's son ; even
though he had done a fine thing in writing his verses in his
native tongue ; but thirty years later it had come to be i;n-
derstood by the people that no place is good enough for the
man who has crowned them with his own glory ; and as they
see that this figure of Michael Lomonosoff is an honor to the
province even more than to the poet, they have raised his
pedestal in the public square.

Would that it had fallen into native hands ! Modelled by
a French sculptor, in the worst days of a bad school, it is a
stupid travestie of truth and art. The rustics and fishermen,
staring at the lyre and Cupid, at the naked shoulders and the
Roman robe, wonder how their poet came to wear such a
dress. This man is not the fellow whom their fathers knew —
that laughing lad who laid down his tackle to become the
peer of emperors and kings. Some day a native sculptor,
woi'king in the local spirit, will make a worthier monument
of the jieasant bard. A tall young fellow, with broad, white
brow and flashing eyes, in shaggy sheep-skin wrap, broad
belt, capacious boots, and high fur cap ; his right hand grasjD-
ing a pole and net, his left hand holding an open Bible; that
would be Michael as he lived, and as men remember him now
that he is dead.

Four years ago (the anniversary of his death in 1V65),
busts were set up, and burses founded in many colleges and
schools, in honor of the peasant's son. Moscow took the lead ;
St. Petersburg followed ; and the example spread to Harkof
and Kazan. A school was built at Holmogory in the poet's
name ; to smooth the path of any new child of genius who
may spring from this virgin soil. May it live forever !

Forest Scenes. 197

CHAPTER XXXVI.

FOREST SCENES.

From Holgomory to Kargopol, from Kargojiol to Vietegra,
we pass through an empire of villages ; not a single i^lace on
a road four hundred miles in length that could by any form
of courtesy be called a town. Tlie track runs on and on, now
winding by the river bank, now eating its way through the
forest growths ; but always flowing, as it Avere, in one thin
line from north to south ; ferrying deejD rivers ; dragging
through shingle, slime, and peat ; crashing over broken rocks ;
and crawling up gentle heights. His horses four abreast, and
lashed to the tarantass with ropes and chains, the driver tears
along the road as though he were racing with his Chert — his
Evil One ; and all in the hope of getting from' his thankless
fare an extra cup of tea. It is the joke of a Russian jarvy,
that he will " drive you out of your senses for ten kopecks."
From dawn to sunset, day by day, it is one long race through
bogs and pines. The landscape shows no dikes, no hedges,
and no gates ; no signs that tell of a personal owning of the
land. We whisk by a log-fire, and a group of tramps, who
flash upon us with a sullen greeting, some of them starTTng
to their feet. " VVbat are those fellows, Dimitri ?"
"" They seem to be some of the runaways."

"Runaways ! Who are the runaways, and what are they
running away from ?"

" Queer fellows, who don't like work, who won't obey
orders, who never rest in one place. You find them in the
woods about here everywhere. They are savages. In Kar-
gopol you can learn about them."

At the town of Kargopol, on the river Onega, in the prov-
ince of Olonetz, I hear something of these runaways, as of a
troublesome and dangerous set of men, bad in themselves,
and still worse~asli sign. 1 hear of them afterAvards in JNov-
gorod the Great, andin Kazan. The community is widely

198 Free Eussia.

spread. Timaslicf jg aware that these unsocial bodies exist
in_thc provinces of YaroslaT', ArchangeT7TDlu*^du, Nuvgurod,
Kostroma, and Perm. ' -

These runaways are vagabonds. Leaving house and land,
tlifowing down their rights as peasants ancPBuT'ghers, they
dress themselves in rags, assume the pilgrim's staff, retire
from th^lr families, push into forest depths, and dwell in
quagmires and sandy rifts, protesting against the official em-
pire and the official church. Some may lead a harmless life ;
the peasants helping them with food and drink ; while they
spend iheir days in dozing and their nights in prayer. ICven
\vhen "their resistance to the world is passive only ; it is a
protest hard to bear and harder still to meet. They will not
labor for the things that perish. They will not bend their
necks to magistrate and prince. They do not admit the law
under Avhich they live. They hold that the present imperial
system is the devil's work ; that the Prince of Darkness sits
enthroned in the winter palace ; that the lords and ladies who
surround him are the lying witnesses and the fallen saints.
Their part is not with the Avorld, from which they fly, as
Abraham fled from the cities of the plain.

Many of the peasants, either sympathizing with their views
.or fearing their vengeance, help them to support their lifeTn
the woods^ No door is ever closed on them ; no voice is
ever~raised against them. Even in the districts which they
are said to ravage occasionally in search of food, hardly any
thing can be learned about them, least of all by the masters
of police.

Fifteen months ago the governor of Olonetz reported to
General Timashef, minister of the interior, that a great num-
ber^of these runaways were known to be living in his province
and in the adjoining provinces, who Avere more or less openly
supported by tlie peasantry in their revolt against social order
and the reigning prince. On being asked by the minister
what should be done, he hinted that nothing else would
meet the evil but a^ seizure .oLxagaboiids onall the roads, and
in all the forest paths, in the vast countries lying north of the
Volga, Irom J^ake ilmen to the Ural crests. His hints were
taken in St. Petersburg, and hundreds of arrests were made ;
but whether the real runaways were caught by the police was

Forest Scenes. 199

a question open to no less doubt than that of how to deal with
them when they were caught — according to the new and lib-
eral code.

Roused by a sense of danger, the Government has been led
into making inquiries far and near, the replies to which are
of a kind to flutter the kindest hearts and puzzle the wisest
heads. To Avit : the Governor of Kazan reports to General
Timashef that he has collected proof — (1.) that in his province
the I'unaways have a regular organization; (2.) that they have
secret places for meeting and worship ; (3.) that they have
chiefs whom they obey and trust. How can a legal minister
deal with cases of an asjDcct so completely Oriental ? Is it a
crime to give up house and land ? Is it an offense to live in
deserts and lonely caves ? "What article in the civil code pre-
vents a man from living like Seraphim in a desert ; like Phila-
ret the Less, in a grave-yard ? Yet, on the other side, how
can a reforming Em^seror suffer his people to fall back into
the nomadic state ? A runaway is not a weakness only, but
a peril ; since the spirit of his revolt agamst social order is
precisely that which the reformers have most cause to dread.
In going back from his country, he is going back into chaos.

The mighty drama now proceeding in his country, turns
on the question raised by the runaway. Can the Russian
peasant live under law? If it shall prove on trial that any
large portion of the Russian peasantry shares this passion for
a vagabond life — as some folk hope, and still more fear — the
great experiment will fail, and civil freedom will be lost for a
hundred years.

The facts collected by the minister have been laid before a
special committee, named by the crown. That committee is
noAv sitting ; but no conclusion has yet been reached, gnd no
suggestion for meeting the evil can be pointed out.

Village "after village passes to the rear !

Russ hamlets are so closely modelled on a common type,
that when you have seen one, you have seen a host ; wlien you
have seen two, you have seen the whole. Your sample may
be either large or small, either log-built or mud-built, either
hidden in forest or exposed on steppe ; yet in the thousands
on thousands to come, you will observe no change in the pre-
vailing forms. There is a Great Russ hamlet and a Little

200 Feee Russia.

Russ hamlet ; one with its centre in Moscow, as the caj)ital of
Great Russia; the second with its centre in Kief, the capital
of Little Russia.

A Great Russ village consists of two lines of cabins parted
from each other by a Avide and dirty lane. Each homestead
stands alone. From ten to a hundred cabins make a village.
Built of the same pine-logs, notched and bound together, each
house is like its fellow, except in size. The elder's hut is big-
ger than the rest ; and after the elder's house comes the whisky
shop. Four squat walls, two tiers in height, and pierced by
doors and windows ; such is the shell. The floor is mud, the
shingle deal. The walls are rough, the crannies stuffed w^ith
moss. No paint is used, and the log fronts soon become
grimy with rain and smoke. The space between each hut lies
open and unfenced ; a slough of mud and mire, in which the
pigs grunt and Avallow, and the wolf-dogs snarl and fight.
The lane is planked. One house here and there may have a
balcony, a cow-shed, an upper story. Near the hamlet rises a
chapel built of logs, and roofed with plank ; but here you find
a flush of color, if not a gleam of gold. The wails of the chap-
el are sure to be painted white, the roof is sure to be painted
green. Some wealthy peasant may have gilt the cross.

Beyond these dreary cabins lie the still more dreaiy fields,
which the people till. Flat, unfenced, and lowly, they have
nothing of the poetry of our fields in the Suffolk and Essex
plains ; no hedgerow ferns, no clumps of fruit-trees, and no
hints of home. The patches set apart for kitchen-stuff are
not like gardens even of their homely kind ; they look like
workhouse plots of space laid out by yard and rule, in which
no living soul had any part. These patches are always mean,
and you search in vain for such a dainty as a flower.

Among the Little Russ — in the old Polish circles of the
south and west, you see a village group of another kind. In-
stead of the grimy logs, you have a predominant mixture of
green and white ; instead of the formal blocks, you have a scat-
ter of cottages in the midst of trees. The cabins are built of
earth and reeds ; the roof is thatched with straw ; and the
Avails of the homestead are washed with lime. A fence of mats
and thorns runs round the group. If every house appears to be
small, it stands in a yard and garden of its own. The village

Forest Scenes. 201

has no sti-eets. Two, and only two, openings pierce the outer
fence — one north, one south ; and in feeling your way from
•one opening in the fence to another, you push througli a maze
of lanes between reeds and sjDines, beset by savage dogs.
Each new-comer would seem to have pitched his tent where
he pleased ; taking care to cover his hut and yard by the com-
mon fence.

A village built without a plan, in which every house is sur-
rounded by a garden, covers an immense extent of ground.
Some of the Kozak villages arc as widely spread as towns.
Of course there is a church, with its glow of color and poetic
charm.

From Kief on the Dnieper to Kalatch on the Don, you find
the villages of this second type. The points of difference He
in the house and in the garden ; and must S2iring from dif-
ference of education, if not of race. The Great Russians are
of a timid, soft, and fluent type. They like to huddle in a
crowd, to club their means, to live under a common roof, and
stand or fall by the family tree. The Little Russians are of a
quick, adventurous, and hardy type ; who like to stand apart,
each for himself, with scope and range enough for the play of
all his powers. A Great Russian carries his bride to his fa-
ther's shed; a Little Russian carries her to a cabin of his
own.

The forest melts and melts ! We meet a woman driving in
a cart alone ; a girl darts Yiast us in the mail ; anon we come
upon a wagon, guarded by troops on foot, containing prison-
ers, partly chained, in charge of an ancient dame.

This service of the road is due from village to village ; and
on a party of travellers coming into a hamlet, tlie elder must
provide for them the things required — carts, horses, drivers —
in accordance with their podorojna ; but iu many villages the
party finds no men, or none except the very young or the very
old. Husbands are leagues away; fishing in the Polar seas,
cutting timber in the Kargopol forests, trapping fox and
beaver in the Ural Mountains ; leaving their Avives alone for
months. These female villages are curious things, in Avhich a
man of pleasant manners may find a chance of flirting to his
heart's content.

Villages, more villages, yet more villages ! "We pass a gang

202 Free Eussia.

of soldiers marching by the side of a peasant's cart, in which
lies a prisoner, chained ; Ave spy a Avolf in the copse ; we meet
a pilgrim on his way to Solovetsk; we come upon a gang of
boys whose clothes appear to be out at wash ; we pass a
broken wagon ; Ave start at the howl of some village dogs ;
and then go winding forAvard hour by hour, througli the si-
lent Avoods. Some touch of grace and poetry charms our eyes
in the most desolate scenes. A virgin freshness crisps and
shakes the leaves? The air is pure. If nearly all the lines are
level, the^kyTs blueTthe sunshine gold. Many of the trees
are rich Avitli amber, pink and broAvn; and every vagrant
breeze makes music in the pines. A peasant and his dog
troop past, reminding me of scenes in Kerit. A'convent Tiere
and there j^eeps out. A patch of forest is on fire, from the
burning mass of Avhich a tongue of pale pink flame laps out
and up through a j^all of purple smoke. A clearing, swept by
some former fire, is all agloAV Avith autumnal flowers. A bright
beck dashes through the falling leaves. A comely child, Avith
flaxen curls and innocent northern eyes, stands boAving in the
road, Avith an almost Syrian grace. A Avoman comes up Avith
a bowl of milk. A group of girls are Avashing at a stream,
under the care of either the Virgin Mother or some local
saint. On every point, the folk, if homely, are devotional and
l^olite ; brightening their forest breaks Avith chapel and cross,
and making their dreary road, as it Avere, a path of light to-
Avards heaven.

We dash into a village near a small black lake.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

PATRIARCHAL LIFJi.

" No horses to be got till night !"

" You see," smirks the village elder, " Ave are making holi-
day ; it is a bridal afternoon, and the patriarch gives a feast
on account of Vanka's nuptials Avith Nadia."

" ISTadia ! Well, a pretty name. We shall have liorses in
the evening, eh ? Then let it be so. Who are yon people ?

Patriarchal Life. 203

Ha ! the church ! Come, let us follow them, and see the
crowning. Is this Vanka a fine young fellow ?"

" Vanka ! yes ; in the bud. He is a lad of seventeen
years ; said to be eighteen years — the legal age — but, hem !
he counts for nothing in the match."

" Why, then, is he going to take a wife ?"

" Hem ! that is the patriarch's business. Daniel wants
some help in the house. Old Dan, you see, is Vanka's fa-
thei-, and the poor old motherkin has been worn by him to the
skin and bone. She is ten years older than he, and the patri-
arch wants a younger woman at his beck and call ; a woman
to milk his cow, to warm his stove, and to make his tea."

" He wants a good servant ?"

"Yes; he wants a good servant, and he Avill get one in
Xadia."

" Then this affair is not a love-match ?"

" Much as most. The lad, though young, is said to have
been in love ; for lads are silly and girls are sly ; but he is
not in love with the woman whom his father chooses foa*
him."

" One of your village girls ?"

" Yes, Lousha ; a* pretty minx, with round blue eyes and
pouting lips ; and not a ruble in the world. Now, Nadia has
five brass samovars and fifteen silver spoons. The heart of
Daniel melted towards those fifteen silver spoons."

" And what says Vanka to the match ?"
' " Nothing. What can he say ? The patriarch has done it
all : tested the spoons, accepted the bride, arranged the feast,
and fixed the day."
T" Russia is the land for you f athersjeh ?" -^

"Each in his time; the father fii-st, tlie offspring next.
Each ill his day ; the boy will be a patriarch in his turn. A
sou is nobody till his parent dies."

" Not in such an affair as choosing his own wife ?"

" No ; least of all in choosing his own wife. You see our
ways are old and homely, like the Bible ways. A patriarch
rules under every roof — not only lives but rules ; and where
in the patriarchal times do you read that the young men went
out into the world and chose them partners for themselves?
Our patriarch settles such things ; he and the proposeress."

20-i Free Eussia.

" Proposeress ! Pray what is a proposeress ?"
""Xu ancient crone, who lives in yon cabin, near the bridge ;
a poor old waif, who feeds upon her craft, who tells your for-
tune by a card, who acts as agent for the girls, and is feared
by every body as a Avitch."

" Have you such a proposeress in every village ?"
" Not in every one. Some villages are too poor, for these
old women must be paid in good kopecks. The craftier sis-
ters live in towns, where they can tell you a good deal more.
These city witches can rule the planets, while the village
witches can only rule the cards."

" You really think they rule the planets ?"
" Who can tell ? We see they rule the men and women ;
yet every man has his planet and his angel. You must know,
the girls who go to the proposeress leave with her a list of
Avhat they have — so many samovars, so much linen and house-
liold stuff. It is not often they have silver spoons. These
lists the patriarchs come to her house and read. A sly fellow,
like Old Dan, will steal to her door at dusk, when no one is
about, and putting down his flask of whisky on the table, ask
the old crone to drink. ' Come, motherkin,' he will giggle,
' bring out your list, and let us talk it over.' ' What are you
seeking, Father Daniel?' leers the crone. 'A wife for Van-
ka, motherkin, a wife ! Here, take a drink ; the dram will do
you good ; and now bring out your book, A fine stout lass,
with plenty of sticks and stones for me !' ' Ha !' pouts the
witch, her finger on the glass, ' you want to see my book !
Well, fatherkin, I have two nice lasses on my hands — good
girls, and well to do ; either one or other just the bride for
Vanka. Here, now, is Lousha ; pretty thing, but no house-
hold stuff; blue eyes, but not yet twenty; teeth like pearls,
but shaky on her feet. !N"ot do for you and your son ? Why
not ? Well, as you please ; I show my Avares, you take them
or you leave them. Lousha is a dainty thing — you need not
blow the shingles off ! Come, come, there's Dounia ; well-
built, buxom lassie ; never raised a scandal in her life ; had
but one lover, a neighbor's boy. What sticks and stones ?
Dounia is a prize in herself — she eats very little, and she
works like a horse. She has four samovars (Russian tea-
urns). Not do for you ! Well, now you are in luck to-

Patriarchal Life, 205

night, little father. Here's Nadia !' — on which comes out
the story of her samovars and her silver spoons."

"And so the match is made?"

" A fee is paid to the parish priest, a day for the rite is
fixed, and all is over — except the feast, the drinking, and the
headache."

" Tell me about :N'adia ?"

" You think Nadia such a pretty name. For my part, I
prefer Marfousha. My wife was Marfa ; called Marfousha
when the woman is a pet."

" Is Xadia young and fair ?"

" Young ? Twenty-nine. Fair ? Brown as a turf."

" Twenty-nine, and Vanka seventeen !"

" But she is big and bony ; strong as a mule, and she can
go all day on very little food."

"AU that would be well enough, if what you wanted was a
slave to thrust a spade and di-ive a cart."

" That is what the patriarch wants ; a servant for himself,*
a partner for his boy."

" How came Vanka to accept her ?"

" Daniel shows hira her silver spoons, her shining urns, and
her chest of household stuff. The lad stares wistfully at
these fine things ; Lousha is absent, and the old man nods.
The woman kisses him, and all is done."

" Poor Lousha ! where is she to-day ?"

" Left in the fields to grow. She is not strong enough yet
to marry. She could not work for her husband and lier hus-
band's father as a wife must do. Far better wait awhile.
At twenty-nine she will be big and bony like Nadia ; then
she will be fit to marry, for then her wild young spirits will
be gone."

We walk along the plank-road from the station to the
church ; which is crowded with men and women in their holi-
day attire ; the girls in red skirts and bodices, trimmed with
fur, and even with silver lace ; the men in clean capotes and
round fur caps, with golden tassels and scarlet tops. The
rite is nearly over; the priest has joined the pair in holy
matrimony ; and the bride and groonr come forth, arrayed in
their tinsel crowns. The king leads out the queen, who cer-
tainly looks old enough to be his dam. One hears so much

206 Free Eussia.

about marital rights in Russia, and the claim of women to be
thrashed in evidence of their husband's love, that one can
hardly help wondering how long it Avill be before Vanka can
beat his wife. Not at present, clearly ; so that one would
feel some doubt of their " sober certainty of bliss," except for
our knowledge that if Vanka fails, the patriarch will not scru-
ple to use his whii).

Crowned with her rim of gilt brass, the bony bride, in stiff
brocade and looking her fifteen silver spoons, slides down the
sloppy lane to her future home.

The whisky-shops — we have two in our village for the
comfort of eighty or ninety souls — are loud and busy, pour-
ing out nips and nippets of their liquid death. Fat, bearded
men are hugging and kissing each other in their pots, while
the younger fry of lads and lasses wend in demure and pen-
sive silence to an open ground, where they mean to wind up
the day's festivities Avith a dance. This frolic is a thing to
see. A ring of villagers, old and yovmg, get ready to applaud
the spoi't. The dancers stand apart ; a knot of young men
here, a knot of maidens there, each sex by itself, and silent as
a crowd of mutes. A piper breaks into a tune ; a youth jduUs
off his cap, and challenges his girl with a wave and bow. If
the girl is willing, she Avaves her handkerchief in token of as-
sent ; the youth advances, takes a corner of the kerchief in
his hand, and leads his lassie round and round. No w^ord is
spoken, and no laugh is heard. Stiff with cords and rich
with braid, the girl moves heavily by herself, going round
and round, and never allowing her partner to touch her
hand. The pipe goes droning on for hours in the same sad
key and measure ; and the prize of merit in this " circling,"
as the dance is called, is given by spectators to the lassie
Avho in all that summer revelry has never spoken and never
smiled !

Men chat with men, and laugh with men ; but if they ap-
jiroach the Avomen, they are speechless ; making signs with
their caps only; and their dumb appeal is ansAvered by a
Avave of the kerchief — ansAvered Avithout Avords. These
romps go on till bed-time ; Avhen the men, being Avarm with
drink, if not with loA^e, begin to reel and shout like Comus
and his tijisy creAV.

Patriarchal Life. 207

The patriarch stops at home, delighted to spend his even-
ing with ISTadia and her silver spoons.

Even Avhen her husband is a grown-up man, a woman has
to come under the common roof, and live by the common
rule. If she would like to get her share of the cabbage soup
and the buckwheat pudding, not to speak of a new bodice
now and then, she must contrive to please tlie old man, and
she can only please him by doing at once Avhatever he bids
her do. The Greek church knows of no divorce ; and once
married, you are tied for life: but neither party has imagina-
tion enough to be wretched in his lot, unless the beans should
fail or the patriarch lay on the whip.

" Would not a husband protect his wife ?"

"No," says the elder, "not where his father is concerned."

A patriarch is lord in his own house and family, and no
man has a right to interfere Avith him ; not even the village
elder and the imperial judge. He stands above oral and
written law. His cabin is not only a castle, but a church,
and every act of his done within that cabin is supposed to be
private and divine.

" If a woman flew to lier husband from blows and stripes ?"

"The husband must submit. What would you have?
Two wills under one roof ? The shingles would fly off."

" The young men always yield ?"

" What should they do but yield ? Is not old age to be
revered ? Is not experience good ? Can a man have lived
his life and not learned wisdom with his years ? Xow, it is
said, the fashion is about to change ; the young men are to
rule the house ; the patriarchs are to hide their beards. But
not in my time ; not in my time !"

"Do the women readily submit to Avhat the patriarch
says ?"

" They must. Suppose Nadia beaten by Old Dan. She
comes to me with her shoulders black and blue. I call a meet-
ing of patriarchs to hear her tale. What comes of it ? She
tells them her father beats her. She shows her scars. The
patriarchs ask her why he beats her ? She owns that she
refused to do this or that, as he bade her ; something, it may
be, which he ought not to have asked, and she ought not to
have done ; but the principle of authority is felt to be at

208 Free Eussia.

stake ; for, if a patriarch is not to rule his house, how is the
elder to rule his village, the governor his province, the Tsar
his empire ? All authorities stand or fall together ; and the
patriarchs find that the woman is a fool, and that a second
drubbing will do her good."

" They would not order her to be flogged ?"

" Not now ; the new law forbids it ; that is to say, in pub-
lic. In his own cabin Daniel may flog Nadia when he likes."

This " new law " against flogging women in public is an
edict of the present reign ; a pai't of that mighty scheme of
social reform which the Emperor is carrying out on every
side. It is not popular in the village, since it interferes M'ith
the rights of men, and cripples the patriarchs in dealing with
the defenseless sex. Since this edict put an end to tlie open
flogging of women, the men have been forced to invent new
modes of punishing their wives, and their sons' wives, since
they fancy that a private beating does but little good, be-
cause it carries no sting of shame. A news-sheet gives the

following as a sample : Euphrosine ^l , a peasant woman

living in the jjrovince of Kherson, is accused by her husband
of unfaithfulness to her vows. The rustic calls a meeting of
patriarchs, who hear his stor}', and without hearing the Avife
in her defense, condemn her to be walked througli the village
stark naked, in broad dayliglit, in the presence of all her
friends. That sentence is executed on a frosty day. Her
guilt is never proved ; yet she has no appeal from the decis-
ion of that village court !

A village is an original and separate ])Ower ; in CATry sense
a state within the state.

CHAPTER XXXYIII.

VILLAGE REPUBLICS.

A VILLAGE is a republic, governed by a law, a custom, and
a ruler of its own.

In AVestern Europe and the United States a hamlet is no
more than a little town in which certain gentlefolk, farmers,

Village Eepublics. 209

tradesmen, and their dependents dwell ; people Avho are as
free to go away as they were free to come. A Russian vil-
lage is not a small town, with this mixture of ranks, but a
collection of cabins, tenanted by men of one class and one
calling ; men who have no power to quit the fields they sow ;
Avho have to stand and fall by each other ; who hold their
lands imder a common bond ; who pay their taxes in a com^,
mon sum ; who give up their sons as soldiers in the common,
name.

These village republics are confined in jiractice to Great
Russia, and the genuine Russ. In Finland, in the Baltic prov-
inces, they are unknown ; in Astrakhan, Siberia, and Kazan,
they are imknown ; in Kief, Podolia, and the Ukraine steppe,
they are unknown ; in the Georgian highlands, in the Circas-
sian valleys, on the Ural slopes, they are equally unknown.
In fact, the existence of these peasant reijublics in a province
is the first and safest test of nationality. Wherever they are
found, the soil is Russian, and the people Russ.

The provinces over which they spread are many in number,
vast in extent, and rich in patriotic virtue. They extend
from the walls of Smolensk to the neighborhood of Viatka ;
from the Gulf of Onega to the Kozak settlements on the
Don. They cover an empire fifteen or sixteen times as large
as France ; the empire of Ivan the Terrible ; that Russia
M'hich lay around the four ancient capitals — Novgorod, Vladi-
mir, Moscow, Pskoff.

What is a village republic ?

Is it Arcady, Utopia, Xew Jerusalem, Brook Farm, Onei-
da Creek, Abode of Love ? Not one of these societies can
boast of more than a passing resemblance to a Russian com-
mune.

A village republic is an association of peasants, living like
a body of monks and nuns, in a convent ; living on lands of
their own, protected by chiefs of their own, and ruled by cus-
toms of their own ; but here thej^nalogy between a commune
and a convent ends ;^ for a peasant marries, multiplies, and
fills the earth. It is an agricultural family, holding an estate
in hand like a Shaker union ; but instead of flying ivon\ the
world and having no friendship beyond the village bounds,
they knit their interests up, by marrying Avith those of the

U

210 Free Eussia.

adjacent communes. It is an association of laymen like a
phalanx ; but instead of dividing the harvest, they divide the
land ; and that division haA'ing taken jDlace, their rule is for
every man to do the best he can for himself, without regard
to his brother's needs. It is a working company, in which
the field and forest belong to all the partners in equal shares,
as in a Gaelic clan and a Celtic sept ; but the Russian rustic
differs from a Highland chiel, and an Irish kerne, in owning
no hereditary chief. It is a socialistic group, with property —
the most solid and lasting jjroperty — in common, like the Bi-
ble votaries at Oneida Creek ; but these partners in the soil
never dream of sharing their goods and wives. It is a tribal
unit, holding what it owns under a common obligation, like a
Jewish house ; but the associates differ from a Jewish house
in bearing different names, and not affecting unity of blood.

By seeing what a village republic is not, we gain some in-
sight into what it is.

We find some sixty or eighty men of the same class, with
the same pursuits ; who have consented, they and their fa-
thers for them, to stay in one spot ; to build a hamlet ; to
elect an elder with unusual powers; to hold their land in
general, not in several ; and to dwell in cabins near each oth-
er, face to face. The purpose of their association is mutual
help.

A pack of wolves may have been the founders of the first
village republic. Even now, when the forests are thinner,
and the villages stronger than of yore, the cry of " wolf " is
no welcome sound ; and when the frost is keen, the village
homesteads have to be watched in turns, by day and night.
A wolf in the Russian forests is like a red-skin on the Kansas
plains. The strength of a party led by an elder, fighting in
defense of a common home, having once been proved by suc-
cess against wolves, it would be easy to rouse that strength
against the fox and the bear, the vagabond and the thief. In
a region full of forests, lakes, and bogs, a lonely settler has no
chance, and Russia is even yet a country of forests, lakes, and
bogs. The settlers must club their means and powers, and
bind theniselves to stand by each other in weal and Avoe.
Wild beasts are not their only foes, A fall of snow is worse
than a raid of wolves ; for the snow may bury their sheds.

Village Eepublics. 211

destroy their roads, imprison them in tombs, from which a
single man would never be able to fight his way. The wolves
are now driven into the woods, but the snow can never be
beaten back into the sky ; and while the northern storms go
raging on, a peasant who tills the northern soil will need for
his protection an enduring social bond.

These peasant republicans find this bond of union in the
soil. They own the soil in common, not each in his own
right, but every one in the name of all. They own it forever,
and in equal shares. A man and his wife make the social
unit, recognized by the commune as a house, and every house
has a claim to a fair division of the family estate ; to so much
field, to so mvich wood, to so much kitchen-ground, as that es-
tate will yield to each. Once in three years all claims fall in, all
holdings cease, a fresh division of the land is made. A com-
mune being a republic, and the men all peers, each voice must
be heard in council, and every claim must be considered in
parcelling the estate. The whole is jjarted into as many lots
as there are married couples in the village ; so much arable,
so much forest, so much cabbage-bed for each. Goodness of
soil and distance from the home are set against each other
in every case.

But the principle of association passes, like the needs out
of which it springs, beyond the village bounds. Eight or ten
communes join themselves into a canton (a sort of parish) ;
ten or twelves cantons form a volost, (a sort of hundred).
Each circle is self-governed ; in fact, a local republic.

From ancient times the members of these village democra-
cies derive a body of local rights; of kin to those family
rights which reforming ministers and judges think it wiser
to leave alone. They choose their own elders, hold their own
courts, inflict their own fines. They have a right to call meet-
ings, draAV uj) motions, and debate their communal affairs.
They have authority over all their members, whether these
are rich or poor. They can depose their elders, and set up
others in their stead, A peasant republic is a patriarchal
circle, exercising powers which the Emperor has not given,
and dares not take away.

The elder — called in Russian starosta — is the village chief.

This elder is elected by the peasants from their own body ;

212 Fkee Eussia.

elected for three years ; though he is seldom changed at the
end of his term ; and men have been known to serve their
neighbors in this office from the age of forty until they died.
Every one is qualified for the j^ost; though it seldom falls,
in practice, to a man who is either unable or unwilling to pay
for drink. The rule is, for the richest peasant of the village
to be chosen, and a stranger driving into a hamlet in search
of the elder will not often be wrong in pulling up his tarantass
at the biggest door. These peasants meet in a chapel, in a
barn, in a dram-shop, as the case may be ; they whisper to
each other their selected name ; they raise a loud shout and a
clatter of horny hands; and when the man of their choice
has bowed his head, accepting their vote, they sally to a
drinking-shop, where they shake hands and kiss each other
over nijipets of whisky and jorums of quass. An unpaid
servant of his village, the Russian elder, like an Arab sheikh,
is held accountable for every thing that happens to go wrong.
Let the summer be hot, let the winter be dure, let the crojD
be scant, let the whisky be thin, let the roads be unsafe, let
the wolves be out — the elder is always the man to blame.
Sometimes, not often, a rich peasant tries to shirk this office,
as a London banker shuns the dignity of lord mayor. But
such a man, if he escape, will not escape scot free. A com-
mune claims the service of her members, and no one can avoid
her call without suffering a fine in either meal or malt. The
man who wishes to escape election has to smirk and smile
like the man who wishes to win the prize. He has to court
his neighbor in the grog-shop, in the church, and in the field;
flattering their weakness, treating them to drink, and whisjier-
ing in their ear that he is either too young, too old, or too
busy, for the office they would thrust upon him. When the
time comes round for a choice to be made, the villagers pass
him by with winks and shrugs, expecting, when the day is
over, to have one more chance of drinking at his expense.

An elder chosen by this village parliament is clothed with
strange, unclassified powers ; for he is mayor and sheikh in
one ; a personage known to the law, as well as a patriarch
clothed with domestic rights. Some of his functions lie be-
yond the law, and clash with articles in the imperial code.

To wit : an elder sitting in his village court, retains the

Communism. 213

power to beat and flog. No one else in Russia, from the
lord on his lawn and the general on parade, down to the
merchant in his shop and the rider on a sledge, can lawfully
strike his man. By one wise stroke of his pen, the Emperor
made all men equal before the stick ; and breaches of this rule
are judged Avitli such wholesome zeal, that the savage energy
of the upper ranks is completely checked. Once only have I
seen a man beat another — an officer who pushed, and struck
a soldier, to prevent him getting entangled in floes of ice.
But a village elder, backed by his meeting, can defeat the
imperial Avill, and set the beneficent piiblic code aside.

A majority of peasants, meeting in a barn, or even in a
whisky-shop, can £ue-. and flag their fellows beyond appeal.
Some rights have been taken from these village republicans
in recent years ; they are not allowed, as in former times,
to lay the lash on women ; and though they can sentence a man
to twenty blows, they may not club him to death. Yet two-
thirds of a village mob, in Avhicli every voter may be drunk,
can send a man to Siberia for his term of life !

CHAPTER XXXIX.

COMMUjSTISM.

Such cases of village justice are not rare. Should a man
have the misfortune, from any cause, to make himself odi-
ous to his neighbors, they can "cry a meeting," summon
him to appear, and find him Avorthy to be expelled. They
can pass a vote which may have the effect of sending for
the police, give the expelled member into custody, and send
him up to the nearest district town. He is now a waif
and stray. Rejected from his commune, he has no place in
society ; he can not live in a town, he can not enter a village;
he is simply a vagabond and an outcast, living beyond the
pale of human law. The provincial governor can do little for
him, even if he be minded to do any thing at all. He has no
means of forcing the commune to receive him back ; in fact,
he has no choice, beyond that of sending such a waif to

214 Feee Eussia.

either the army or the j^ublic works. If all the forms have
been observed, the village judgment is final, and the man ex-
pelled from it by such a vote is pretty sure of passing the
remainder of his days on earth in either a Circassian regi-
ment or a Siberian mine.

In the more serious cases dealt with by courts of law, a
commune has the power of reviewing the sentence passed,
and even of setting it aside.

Some lout (say) is suspected of setting a barn on fire.
Seized by his elder and given in charge to the police, he is
carried up to the assize town, where he is tried for his alleged
offense, and after proof being given on either side, he is ac-
quitted by the jury and discharged by the judge. It might
be fancied that such a man would return to his cabin and his
field, protected by the courts. But no ; the commune, which
has done him so much wrong already, may complete the in-
jury by refusing to receive him back. A meeting may re-
view the jurors and the judge, decline their verdict, try the
man once more in secret, and condemn him, in his absence,
to the loss — not simply of his house and land — but of his
fame and caste.

The communes have other, and not less curious, rights.
Ko member of a commune can quit his village without the
general leave, without a passport signed by the elder, who can
call him home w^ithout giving reasons for his acts. The ab-
sent brother must obey, on penalty of being expelled from
his commune : that is to say — in a Russian village, as in an
Indian caste — being flung out of organized society into infi-
nite space.

Nor can the absent member escape from this tribunal by
forfeiting his personal rights. An elder grants him leave to
travel in very rare cases, and for very short terms ; often for
a month, now and then a quarter, never for more than a
year. That term, whether long or short, is the limit of a
man's freedom ; when it expires, he must return to his com-
mune, under penalty of seizure by the police as a vagabond
living without a pass.

A village parliament is holden once a yeai', when every
holder of house and field has the right to be heard. The
suffrage is general, the voting by ballot. Any member can

Communism. 215

bring np a motion, wliich the elder is comjjelled to put. An
unpopular elder may be deposed, and some one else elected in
his stead. Subjects of contention are not lacking in these
peasant parliaments ; but the fiercest battles are those fought
over roads, imperial taxes, conscripts, wood-rights, water-
rights, wkisky licenses, and the choice of lots.

What may be termed the external affairs of the village —
highways, fishei'ies, and forest-rights — are settled, not with
imperial officers, but with their neighbors of the canton and
the volost. The canton and the volost treat with the gen-
eral, governor, and police. A minister looks for what he
needs to the association, not to the separate members, and
when rates are levied and men are wanted, the canton and the
volost receive their orders and jiroceed to raise alike the mon-
ey and the men. The crown has only to send out orders;
and the money is paid, the men are raised, j A system so ef-
fective and so cheaj), is a convenience to me ministers of
finance and war so great that the haughtiest despots and the'
wisest reformers have not dared to touch the interior life of
these peasant commonwealths. "1

Thus the village system remains a thing apart, not only
from the outer world, but from the neighboring town. The
men who live in these sheds, who plough these fields, who an-
gle in this lake, are living by an underived and original light.
(jrheir law is an oral law, their charter bears no seal, their
franchise knows no date.1 They vote their own taxes, and
they frame their own I'ules. Excej)t in crimes of serious dye,
they act as an independent court. They fine, they jiunish,
they expel, they send unpopular men to Siberia ; and even
call up tlie civil arm in execution of their will.

Friends of these rustic republics urge as merits in the vil-
lage system, that the men ai"e peers, that public opinion gov-
erns, that no one is exempt from the general law, that rich
men find no privilege in their wealth. All this sounds Avell
in words; and probably in seven or eight cases out of ten
the peasants treat their brethren fairly ; though it will not be
denied that in the other two or three cases gross and comical
burlesques of justice may be seen. I hear of a man being
flogged for Avriting a paragraph in a local paper, whicli half,
at least, of his judges could not read. Still worse, and still

216 Free Eussia.

more flagrant, is the abuse of extorting money from tlie rich.
A charge is made, a meeting cried, and evidence beard. If
the offender falls on bis knees, admits his guilt, and offers to
pay a fine, the charge is dropped. The whole party marches
to the Avhisky shop, and spends the fine in drams. Now the
villagers know jDretty well the brother who is rich enough to
give his rubles in place of baring his back ; and when they
thirst for a dram at some other man's cost, they have only to
get up some flimsy charge on which that yielding brother can
be tried. The man is sure to buy himself off. Then comes
the farce of charge and proof, admission and fine ; followed
by the drinking bout, in which from policy the oftender joins ;
until the virtuous villagers, warm with the fiery demon, kiss
and slobber upon each other's beards, and darkness covers
them up in their drunken sleej).

In Moscow I know a man, a clerk, a thrifty fellow, born in
the province of Tamboff, who has saved some money, and the
fact coming out, he has been thrice called home to his village,
thrice accused of trumpery offenses, thrice corrected by a fine.
In every case, the man was sentenced to be flogged ; and he
paid his money, as they knew he would, to escape from suf-
fering and disgrace. His fines were instantly spent in drink.
A member of a village republic who has prospered by his
thrift and genius finds no way of guarding himself from such
assaults, except by craftily lending sums of money to the
heads of houses, so as to get the leading men completely into
his power.

In spite of some patent virtues, a rural system which com-
pels the more enterprising and successful men to take up such
a position against their fellows in actual self-defense, can
hardly be said to serve the higher purposes for which socie-
ties exist.

These village republics are an open question ; one about
Avhich there is daily strife in every oflSce of Government, in
every organ of the press. Men who differ on every other
point, agree in praising the rural communes. Men who agree
on every other point, ^Dai-t company on the merits and. vices
of the rural communes.

Not a few of the ablest reformei-j wish to see them thrive ;
royalists, like Samarin and Cherkaski, and. republicans, like

Communism. 217

Herzen and Ogareff, see in these village societies the gei'in^
of a new civilization for East and West. Men of science, like
Valouef, Bungay, and Besobrazof, on the contrary, find in
these communes nothing Jmt evil, nothing but a legacy from
the dark ages, which must pass away as the light of j)ersonal
freedom dawns.

That the. village communes ha\'e SQmia... virtues may be safe-
ly said. A minister of war .^nd a nnnistpr of fin.i'icp are
keenly alive to these virtues, since a man who wishes t(^4evy /^
tj^Qflps and taxes_ni_a quick, uncostly fashion, finds it easieijA
to deal with fifty thousand elders, than with fifty million^
peasants. A minister of_jxiati<^ thinks wuth comfort of the
host of watchful, unpaideyesThat are kept in self-defense on
such as are suspected of falling into evil ways. These vir-
tues are not all, not nearly /all. A rural system, in which ev-
ery married man has a stake in the soil, produces a conserva-
tive and pacific people. (J^,oj;ace on earth ei therj^n fi^rrntrh^
Vways or prays for peace so fervently as the RussTI Where
each man is a landholder, abject^^overty is, uiiknmi'n ; and
Kussia has scant need for poor-laws and Avork-houses, since
she has no such misery in her midst as a permanent pauper
class. Every body has a cabin, a field, a cow; perhaps a
horse and cart. Even when a fellow is lazy enough and base
enough to ruin himself, he can not ruin his sons. They hold
their j^lace in the commune, as peers of all, and when they
grow up to man's estate, they will obtain their lots, and set
up life on their own account. The bad man dies, and leaves
to his province no legacy of poverty and crime. The com-
munes cherish love for parents, and respect for age. They
keep alive the feeling of brotherhood and equality, and in-
spire the country with a sentiment of mutual dependence and
mutual help.

_Qn_the other side, they foster a ]igxish_spidt, tend to .sqi^a-
rate village from town, strengthen thfr ideas of^class and
caste, and favor that Avorst delusion in a country — of there
bein^a state within a state ! Living in Jiis own republic, a
peasant is apt to consider the burgher as a stranger living
under a different and inferior rule. A peasant hears little of
the civil code, except in his relations with the townsfolk; and
he learns to despise the men who are bound by the letter of

218 Free Eussia.

that civil code. Between his own institutions and those of
his burgher neighbors there is a chasm, Uke that which sei^a-
rates America from France.

CHAPTER XL.

TOWNS.

A TOWN is a community lying beyond the canton and vo-
lost, in which people live by burgher right and not by com-
munal law. Unlike the peasant, a burgher has power to buy
and sell, to make and mend, to enter crafts and guilds ; but
he is chained to his trade very much as the rustic is chained
to his field. His house is built of logs, his roads are laid
with planks ; but then his house is painted green or pink, and
his road is wide and properly laid out. In place of a free lo-
cal government, the town finds a master in the minister, in the
governor, in the chief of police. While the village is a sepa-
rate republic, the town is a parcel of the empire ; and as par-
cel of the empire it must follow the imperial code.

Saving the great cities, not above five or six in number, all
Russian towns have a common character, and when you have
seen two or three in different parts of the empire, you have
seen them all. Take any riverside town of the second class
(and most of these towns are built on the banks of streams)
from Onega to Rostoff, from jSTijni to Kremenchug. A fire-
tower, a jail, a fish-market, a bazar, and a cathedral, catch the
eye at once. Above and below the town you see monastic
piles. A bridge of boats connects the two banks, and a poor-
er suburb lies before the town. The port is crowded A\dth
smacks and rafts ; the smacks bringing fish, the rafts bring-
ing pines. What swarms of people on the wharf ! How
grave, how dirty, and how pinched, they look ! Their sad-
ness comes of the climate, and their dirt is of the East.
"Yes, yes !" you may hear a mujik say to his fellow, speak-
ing of some neighbor, "he is a respectable man — quite; he
has a clean shirt once a week." The rustic eats but little
flesh ; his dinner, even on days that are not kept as fasts, be-

Towns. 219

ing a slice of black bread, a girkin, and a piece of dried cod.
Just watch them, how they higgle for a kopeck ! A Russ
craftsman is a fellow to deal with ; ever hopeful and acquies-
cent ; ready to please in word and act ; but you are never
sure that he will keep his word. He has hardly any sense of
time and space. To him one hour of the day is like another,
and if he has promised to make you a coat by ten in the
morning, he can not be got to see the wrong of sending it
home by eleven at night.

The market reeks with oil and salt, with vinegar and fruit,
with the refuse of halibut, cod, and sprats. The chief articles
of sale are rings of bread, salt girkins, pottery, tin j)lates, iron
nails, and images of saints. The street is paved with pools,
in which lie a few rough stones, to help you in stepping from
stall to stall. To walk is an effort ; to walk with clean feet
a miracle. Such filth is too deep for shoes.

A fish-wife is of either sex ; and even when she belongs of
right to the better side of human nature, she is not easy to
distinguish from her lord by any thing in her face and garb.
Seeing her in the sharp wind, quilted in her sheep-skin coat,
and legged in her deer-skin hose, her features pinched by
frost, her hands blackened by toil, it would be hard to say
which was the female and which the male, if Providence had
not blessed the men with beards. By these two signs a Kuss
may be knoAvn from all other men — by his beard and by his
boots ; but since many of his female folk wear boots, he is
only to be safely known from his partner in life by the bunch
of hair upon his chin.

In the bazar stand the shops ; dark holes in the wall, like
the old Moorish shops in Seville and Granada; in Avhich the
dealer stands before his counter and shows you his poor as-
sortment of prints and stuffs, his pots and pans, his saints, his
candles, and his packs of cai'ds. Next to rye-bread and salt
fish, saints and cards are the articles mostly bought and sold ;
for in Russia every body prays and plays ; the noble in his
club, the dealer at his shop, the boatman on his barge, the pil-
grim by his wayside cross. The propensities to pray and
gamble may be traced to a common root; a kind of moral
fetichism, a trust in the grace of things unseen, in the merit
of dead men, and even in the power of chance. A Russian

220 Fkee Eussia.

takes, like a cliild, to every strange thing, and prides himself
on the completeness of his faith. When he is not kneeling to
his angel, nothing renders him so happy as the sight of a pack
of cards.

Nearly every one plays high for his means ; and nothing is
more common than for a burgher to stake and lose, first his
money, then his boots, his cap, his caftan, every scrap of his
garments, down to his very shirt. Whisky excepted, noth-
ing drives a Russian to the devil so quickly as a pack of
cards.

But see, these gamblers throw down their cards, unbonnet
their heads, and fall upon their knees. The j^riest is coming
down the street with his sacred picture and his cross. It is
market-day in the town, and he is going to open and bless
some shop in the bazar ; and fellows who were gambling for
their shirts are now upon their knees in prayer.

The rite by Avhich a shoj), a shed, a house, is dedicated to
God is not without touches of poetic beauty. Notice must
be given aforetime to the parish priest, wdio fixes the hour of
consecration, so that a man's kinsfolk and neighbors may be
present if they like. The time having come, the priest takes
down his cross from the altar, a boy lights the embers in his
censer, and, preceded by his reader and deacon, the pope moves
down the streets through crowds of kneeling men and wom-
en, most of whom rise and follow in his wake, only too eager
to catch so easily and cheaply some of the celestial fire.

Entering the shop or house, the pope first purges the room
by prayer, then blesses the tenant or dweller, and lastly sanc-
tifies the place by hanging in the " corner of honor " an im-
age of the dealer's guardian angel, so that in the time to come
no act can be done in that house or shop except under the
eyes of its patron saint.

Though poor as art, such icons, placed in rooms, have pow-
er upon men's minds. Not far from Tamboff lived an old
lady who was more than commonly hard u^Don her serfs, until
the poor wretches, maddened by her use of the whip and the
black hole, broke into her room at night, some dozen men, and
told her, with a sudden brevity, that her hour had come and
she must die. Springing from her bed, she snatched her im-
age from the Avail, and held it out against her assailants, dar-

Towns. 221

ing them, to strike the Mother of God. Dropping their ckibs,
they lied from before her face. Taking courage from her vic-
tory, she hung up the picture, drew on her wrapper, and fol-
lowed her serfs into the yard, where, seeing that she was un-
protected by her image, they set upon her with a shout, and
clubbed her instantly to death.

In driving through the town we note how many are the
dram-shops, and how many the tipsy men. Among the small-
er reforms under which the burgher has now to live is that
of a thinner drink. The Emperor has put water into the
whisky, and reduced the price from fifteen kopecks a glass to
five. The change is not much relished by the topers, who call
their thin potation, dechofka — cheap stuff; but simpler souls
give thanks to the reformer for his boon, saying, " Is he not
good — our Tsar — in giving vis three glasses of whisky for the
jirice of a single glass !" Yet, thin as it is, a nippet of the fiery
spirit throws a sinner of£ his legs, for his stomach is empty,
his nerves are lax, and his blood is poor. If he were better fed
he would crave less drink. Happily a Russian is not quarrel-
some in his cups ; he sings and smiles, and wishes to hug you
in the public street. No richer comedy is seen on any stage
than that presented by two tipsy mujiks riding on a sledge,
putting their beards together and throwing their arms about
each other's neck. A happy fellow lies in the gutter, fast
asleep ; another, just as tipsy, comes across the roadway, looks
at his brother, draws his own wrapj^er round his limbs, and
asking gods and men to pardon him, lies down tenderly in the
puddle by his bi'Other's side.

The social instincts are, in a Russian, of exceeding strength.
He likes a crowd. The very hermits of his country are a so-
cial crew — not men who rush away into lonely nooks, where,
hidden from all eye-^, they grub out caves in the rock and bur-
row under roots of trees; but brothers of some popular clois-
ter, famous for its saints and pilgrims, where tliey drive a
shaft under the convent wall, secrete themselves in a hole, and
receive their food through a chink, in sight of wondering vis-
itors and advertising monks. Such were the founders of his
church, the anchorets of Kief.

The first towns of Russia are Kief and Novgorod the
Great ; her capitals and holy places long before she built her-

222 Free Eussia.

self a ki'emlin on the Moskva, and a wintei* palace on the Xeva.
Kief and Novgorod are still her pious and poetic cities ; one
the tower of her religious faith, the other of her imperial pow-
er. From Vich Gorod at Kief springs the dome which cele-
brates her conversion to the Church of Christ ; in the Krem-
lin of Novgorod stands the bronze group which typifies her
empire of a thousand years.

CHAPTER XLI.

KIEF.

Kief, the oldest of Russian sees, is not in Russia Proj^er,
and many historians treat it as a Polish town. The people
are Rutheniaus, and for hundreds of years the city belonged
to the Polish crown. The jDlain in front of it is the Ukraine
steppe ; the land of hetman and zaporogue ; of stirring legends
and riotous song. The manners are Polish and the people
Poles. Yet here lies the cradle of that church which has
shaped into its own likeness every quality of Russian political
and domestic life.

The city consists of three parts, of three several towns —
Podol, Vich Gorod, Pechersk ; a business town, an imjDerial
town, and a sacred town. All these quarters are crowded
with offices, shops, and convents ; yet Podol is the merchant
quarter, Vich Gorod the Government quarter, and Pechersk
the pilgrim quarter. These towns overhang the Dnieper, on
a range of broken cliffs ; contain about seventy thousand
souls ; and .hold, in two several places of interment, all that
was mortal of the Pagan duke who became her foremost
saint.

Kief is a city of legends and events ; the preaching of St.
Andrew, the piety of St. Olga, the conversion of St. Vladimir ;
the Mongolian assault, the Polish conquest, the recovery by
Peter the Great. The provinces round Kief resemble it, and
rival it, in historic fame. Country of Mazeppa and Gonta, the
Ukraine teems with story; tales of the raid, the flight, the
night attack, the violated town. Every village has its le-

Kief, 223

gencl, every town its epic, of love and war. The land is aglow
with personal life. Yon chapel marks the spot where a grand
duke was killed ; this mound is the tomb of a Tartar horde ;
that field is the site of a battle with the Poles, The men are
brighter and livelier, the houses are better built, and the
fields are better trimmed than in the North and East. The
music is quicker, the brandy is stronger, the love is warmer,
the hatred is keener, than you find elsewhere. These prov-
inces are Gogol's country, and the scenery is that of his most
popular tales.

Like all the southern cities, Kief fell into the power of Batu
Khan, the Mongol chief, and groaned for ages under the yoke
of Asiatic begs. These begs were idol-worshippers, and un-
der their savage and idolatrous rule the children of Vladimir
had to pass through heavy trials ; but Kief can boast that in
the worst of times she kept in her humble churches and her
underground caves the sacred embers of her faith alive.

Below the tops of two high hills, three miles from that Vich
Gorod in which Vladimir built his harem, and raised the stat-
ue of his Pagan god, some Christian hermits, Anton, Feo-
dosie, and their fellows, dug for themselves in the loose red
rock a series of corridors and caves, in which they lived and
died, examples of lowly virtue and the Christian life. The
Russian word for cave is pechera, and the site of these caves
was called Pechersk. Above the cells in which these hermits
dwelt, two convents gradually arose, and took the names of
Anton and Feodosie, now become the patron saints of Kief,
and the reputed fathers of all men living in Russia a monas-
tic life.

A green dip between the old town, now trimmed and plant-
ed, parts the first convent — that of Anton — from the city ; a
second dip divides the convent of Feodosie, from that of his
fellow - saint. These convents, nobly planned and sti-ongly
built, take rank among the finest piles in Eastern Europe.
Domes and pinnacles of gold surraoiint each edifice ; and ev-
ery wall is pictured with legends from the lives of saints. The
ground is holy. More than a hundred hermits lie in the cata-
combs, and crowds of holy men lie mouldering in every niche
of the solid wall. Mouldering ! I crave their pardons. Holy
men never rust and rot. For purity of the flesh in death is

224 Free Eussia.

evidence of purity of the flesli in life ; and saints are just as
incorruptible of body as of soul. In Anton's Convent you are
shown the skull of St. Vladimir ; that is to say, a velvet pall
in which his skull is said to be wrapped and swathed. You
are told that the flesh is pure, the skin uncracked, the odor
sweet. A line of dead bodies fills the underground passages
and lanes — each body in a niche of the rock ; and all these
martyrs of the faith are said to be, like Vladmir, also fresh
and sweet.

A stranger can not say whether this tale of the incorrupti-
bility of early saints and monks is true or not ; since nothing
can be seen of the outward eye except a coffin, a velvet pall,
and an insci'iption newly painted in the Slavonic tongue. A
great deal turns on the amount of faith in which you seek for
proof. For monks are men, and a critic can hardly jjress
them with his doubts. Suppose you try to persuade your
guides to lift the pall from St. Anton's face. Your own opin-
ion is that even though human frames might resist the dis-
solving action of an atmosphere like that of Sicily and Egypt,
nothing less than a miracle could have preserved intact the
bodies of saints who died a thousand yeai'S ago, in a cold,
damp climate like that of Kief. You wish to put your sci-
ence to the test of fact. You wish in vain. The monk will
answer for the miracle, but no one answers for the monk.

Fifty thousand pilgrims, chiefly Ruthenians from the popu-
lous provinces of Podolia, Kief, and Volhynia, come in sum-
mer to these shrines.

When Kief recovered her freedom from the Tartar begs,
she found herself by the chance of war a city of Polonia, not
of Moscovy — a member of the Western, not of the Eastern
section of her race. Kief had never been Russ, as Moscow
was Russ ; a rude, barbaric town, with crowds of traders and
rustics, ruled by a Tartarized court ; and now that her lot
was cast with the more liberal and enlightened West, she
grew into a yet more Oriental Prague. For many reigns she
lay open to the arts of Germany and France ; and when she
returned to Russia, in the times of Peter the Great, she was
not alone the noblest jewel in his crown, but a point of union,
nowhere else to be found, for all the Slavonic nations in the
world.

Paxslavonia. 225

As an inland city Kief has tlie finest site in Russia. Stand-
ing on a range of bluffs, she overlooks a splendid length of
steppe, a broad and navigabie stream. She is the port and
capital of the' Ukraine ; and the Malo-Russians, whether set-
tled on the Don, the Ural, or the Dniester, look to her for
orders of the day. She touches Poland Avith her right hand,
Russia with her left; she flanks Galicia and Moldavia, and
keeps her front towards the Bulgarians, the Montenegrins,
and the Serbs. In her races and religions she is much in lit-
tle ; an epitome of all the Slavonic tribes. One-third of her
population is Moscovite, one-third Russine, and one-third Po-
lack ; while in faith she is Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and
United Greek. If any city in Europe offers itself to Pan-
slavonic dreamers as their natural capital, it is Kief.

CHAPTER XLII.

PANSLAVONIA.

Until a year ago, these Panslavonic dreamers were a par-
ty in the State ; and even now they have powerful friends at
Court. Their cry is Panslavonia for the Slavonians. Last
year the members of this party called a congress in Moscow,
to which they invited — first, their fellow-countrymen, from
the White Sea to the Black, from the Vistula to the Amoor ;
and next, the representatives of their race who dwell under
foreign sceptres — the Czeck from Prague, the Pole from Cra-
cow, the Bulgar from Shumla, the Montenegrin from Cet-
tigne, the Serb from Belgrade ; but this gathering of the
clans in Moscow opened the eyes of moderate men to the
dangerous nature of this Panslavonic dream, A deep dis-
trust of Russian life, as noAV existing, lies at the root of it ;
the dreamers hoping to fall back upon forms inspired by what
they call a nobler national spirit. They read the chronicles
of their race, they collect popular songs, they print peasant
tales ; and in these Ossianic legends of the steppe they find
the germ of a policy which they call a natural product of their
soil.

15

226 Free Eussia,

Like the Old Believers, these Pansluvoni.ans deny the Em-
peror and own the Tsar. To them Peter the Great is Anti-
christ, and the success of his reforms a temporary triumph
of the Evil Spirit. lie left his country, they allege, in order
to study in foreign lands the arts by which it could be over-
thrown. On his return to Kussia no one recognized him as
their prince. lie came with a shaven face, a pipe in his
mouth, a jug of beer in his hand. A single stroke of his pen
threw down an edifice which his people had been rearing for
a thousand years. He carried his government beyond the
Russian soil ; and, in a strange swamp, by the shores of a
Swedish gulf, he built a palace for his court, a market for his
purveyors, a fortress for his troops. This city he stamped
with a foreign genius and baptized with a foreign name.

For these good reasons, the Panslavonians set their teeth
against all that Peter did, against nearly all that his follow-
ers on the throne have done. They wish to put these alien
things away, to resume their capital, to grow their beards, to
w^ear their fur caps, to draw on their long boots, without be-
ing mocked as savages, and coerced like serfs. They deny
that civilization consists in a razor and a felt hat. Finding-
much to comj)lain of in the judicial sharpness of German rule,
they leajjed to the conclusion that every thing brought from
beyond the Vistula is bad for Russia and the Russ. In the
list of things to be kept out of their country they include
German philosophy, French morals, and English cotton-prints.

A tliorough Panslavonian is a man to make one smile ;
with him it is enough that a thing is Russian in order to be
sworn the best of its kind. Now, many things in Russia are
good enough for proud people to be proud of. The church-
bells are musical, the furs warm and handsome, the horses
swift, the hounds above all praise. The dinners are well-
served ; the sterlet is good to eat ; but the wines are not
first-rate and the native knives and forks are bad. Yet
patriots in Kief and Moscoav tell you, with gravest face, that
the vintage of the Don is finer than that of the Garonne, that
the cutlery of Tula is superior to that of Sheffield. Yet these
dreamers say and unsay in a breath, as seems for the moment
best ; for while they crack up their country right and wrong,
in the face of strangers ; they abuse it right and wrong when

Panslavonia. 227

speaking of it among themselves. " We are sick, we are sick
to death," was a saying in the streets, a cry in the public
journals, long before Nicolas transferred the ailment of his
country to that of his enemy the Turk, " We have never
done a thing," wrote Khomakof, the Panslavonic jioet ; " not
even made a rat-trap."

A Panslavoniau fears free trade. He wants cheap cotton
shirts, he wants good knives and forks ; but then he shudders
at the sight of a cheap shirt and a good fork on hearing from
his priest that Manchester and Sheffield are two heretical
towns, in which the spinners w^ho weave cloth, the grinders
who polish steel, have never been taught by their pastors how
to sign themselves with the true Greek cross. What shall it
profit a man to have a cheap shirt and lose his soul ? The
Orthodox clergy, seizing the Panslavonic banner, wrote on
its front their own exclusive motto : " Russia and the Byzan-
tine Church ;" and this priestly motto made a Panslavistic
iinity impossible ; since the Western branches of the race are
not disciples of that Byzantine Church. At Moscow every
thing was done to keep down these dissensions ; and the
question of a future capital was put off, as one too dangerous
for debate. Nine men in ten of every party urge the aban-
donment of St. Petersburg ; but Moscow, standing in the heart
of Russia, can not yield her claims to Kief.

The partisans of Old Russia join hands with those of Young
Russia in assailing these Panslavistic dreamers, who prate of
saving their country from the vices and errors of Europe,
and offer — these assailants say — no other plan than that of
changing a German yoke for either a Byzantine or a Polish
yoke.

The clever men who guide this party are well aware that
the laws and ceremonies of the Lower Empire offer them no
good models ; but in returning to the Greeks, they expect to
gain a firmer hold on the practices of their Church. For the
rest, they are willing to rest in the hands of God, in the
Oriental hope of finding that all is Avell at last. If nothing
else is gained, they will have saved their souls.

" Their souls !" laugh the Young Russians, trained in what
are called the infidel schools of France ; " these fellows who
have no souls to be saved !" " Their souls !" frown the Old

228 Free Bussia.

Believers, strong in their ancient customs and ancient faith ;
" these men whose souls are already damned !" With a piti-
less logic, these opponents of the Panslavonic dreamers call
on tliem to put their thoughts into simple words. What is
the use of dreaming dreams ? " How can you promote Sla-
vonic nationality," ask tlie Young Russians, " by excluding
the most liberal and enlightened of our brethren? How can
you promote civilization by excluding cotton-prints?" The
Old Believers ask, on the other side, " How can you extend
the true faith by going back to the Lower Empire, in which
religion was lost ? How can you, who are not the children of
Christ, promote his kingdom on the earth ? You regener-
ate Russia ! you, who are not the inheritors of her ancient
and holy faith !"

Reformers of every school and type have come to see the
force which lies in a Western idea — not yet, practically, known
in Russia — that of individual right. They ask for every sort
of freedom ; the right to live, the right to think, the right to
speak, the right to hold land, the right to travel, the right to
buy and sell, as personal rights. " How," they demand from
the Pan Slavonians, " can the Russian become a free man while
his personality is absorbed in the commune, in the empire,
and in the church ?"

" An old Russian," replies the Panslavonian, " was a free
man, and a modern Russian is. a free man, but in a higher
sense than is understood by a trading-people like the English,
an infidel people like the French. Inspired by his Church, a
Russian has obtained the gifts of resignation and of sacrifice.
By an act of devotion he has conveyed his individual rights
to his native prince, even as a son might give up his rights to
a father in whose love and care he had perfect trust. A right
is not lost which has been openly lodged in the hands of a
compassionate and benevolent Tsar. The Western nations
have retained a liberty which they find a curse, while the
Russians have been saved by obeying the Holy Spirit."

Imagine the mockery by which an argument so pati'iarchal
has been met !

" No illusion, gentlemen," said the Emperor to his first
deputation of Poles. So far as they are linked in fortune
with their Eastern brethren, the Poles are invited to an equal

Exile. 229

place in a great empire, having its centre of gravity in ]\[os-
cow, its port of communication in St. Petersburg ; not to a
Japanese kingdom of the Slavonic tribes, with a mysterious
and secluded throne in Kief.

Yet the Poles and Ruthonians who people the western prov-
inces and the southern steppe Avill not readily give up their
dream ; and their genius for affairs, their oratorical gifts, their
love of war, all tend to make them enemies equally dangerous
in the court and in the field. Plastic, clever, adroit, with the
advantage of speaking the language of the country, these
dreamers get into places of high trust; into the professor's
chair, into the secretary's office, into the aid-de-camp's saddle ;
in which they carry on their plot in favor of some form of
government other than that under which they live.

CHAPTER XLIII.

A WEEK before the last rising of the Poles took place, an
officer of high rank in the Russian service came in the dead
of night, and wrapped in a great fur cloak, to a friend of mine
living in St. Petersburg, with whom he had little more than a
passing acquaintance —

" I am going out," he said, " and I have come to ask a favor
and say good-bye."

" Going out !"

" Yes," said his visitor. " My commission is signed, my
post is marked. Next week you will hear strange news."

" Good God !" cried my friend ; " think better of it. You,
an officer of state, attached to the ministry of war I"

" I am a Pole, and my country calls me. You, a stranger,
can not feel with the passions burning in my heart. I know
that by quitting the service I disgrace my general ; that the
Government will call me a deserter ; that if we fail, I shall
be deemed unworthy of a soldier's death. All this I know,
yet go I must."

"But your wife — and married ouq year !"

230 Free Eussia.

" She will be safe, I have asked for thi-ee months' leave.
Our passes have been signed; in a week she will be lodged in
Paris with our friends. You are English ; that is the reason
why I seek you. In the drojki at your door is a box; it is
full of coin, I w^ant to leave this box with you ; to be given
up only in case we fail ; and then to a man who will come to
you and make this sign. I need not tell you that the money
is all my own, and that the charge of it will not compro-
mise you, since it is sacred to charity, and not to be used for
war."

" It is a part, I suppose," said my friend, "of your Siberian
fund ?"

" It is," said the soldier ; " you will accept my trust ?"

The box was left ; the soldier went his way. In less than a
week the revolt broke out in many places ; slight collisions
took place, and the Poles, under various leaders, met with the
success which always attends surprise. Three or four names,
till then unknown, began to attract the public eye ; but the
name of my friend's midnight visitor was not amongst them.

General grew into sudden fame ; his rapid march, his

dashing onset, his daily victory, alarmed the Russian court,
until a very strong corps was ordered to be massed against
him. Then he was crushed ; some said lie was slain. One
night, my friend was seated in his chamber, reading an ac-
count of this action in a journal, when his servant came into
the room with a card, on which was printed :

The Countess R .

The lady was below, and begged to see my friend that night.
Her name was strange to him ; but he went out into the pas-
sage, where he found a pale, slim lady of middle age, attired
in the deepest black.

" I have come to you," she said at once, " on a work of
charity. A young soldier crawled to my house from the field
of battle, so slashed and shot that we expected him to die
that night. He was a patriot ; and his papers showed that

he was the young General , He lived through the

night, but wandered in his mind. He spoke much of Marie ;
perhaps she is his wife. By daylight he was tracked, and
carried from my house ; but ere he was dragged away, he

Exile. 231

gave me this card, and with the look of a dying man, im-
plored me to place it in your hands."

" You have brought it yourself from Poland ?"

" I am a sufferer too," she said ; " no time could be lost ;
in three days I am here."

" You knew him in other days ?"

" No ; never. He was miserable, and I wished to help him.
I have not learned his actual name."

Glancing at the card, my friend saw that it contained noth-
ing but his own name and address written in English letters ;
as it might be :

George Herbert,

Sergie Street,

St. Petersburg.

He knew the handwriting. " Gracious heavens !" he exclaim-
ed, " was this card given to you by General ?"

"It was."

In half an hour my friend was closeted with a man who
might intervene with some small hope. The minister of war
Avas reached. ^ Surprised and grieved at the news conveyed
to him, the minister said he would see what could be done.
" General Mouravieff," he exjDlained, " is stern, his power un-
limited; and my poor adjutant was taken on the field. De-
serter, rebel — what can be ui-ged in arrest of death ?" In
truth, he had no time to plead, for MouraviefE's next dispatch
from Poland gave an account of the execution of Gener-
al by the ro2)e. On my friend calling at the war-office

to hear if any thing could be done, he was told the story by
a sign.

" Can you tell me," inquired the minister, " under what
name my second adjutant is in the field? He also is miss-
ing." The caller could not help a smile. "You are think- ^
ing," said the minister, " that this Polish revolt was organ-
ized in my office ? You are not far Avrong."

Archangel, Caucasus, Siberia — every frontier of the empire
had her batch of hapless prisoners to receive. The present
reign has seen the system of sending men to the frontiers
much relaxed ; and the public works of Archangel occupied,
for a time, the place once held in the public mind by the Si-
berian mines. Not that the Asiatic waste has been abandon-

232 Free Kussia.

ed as an imperial Cayenne. Many great criminals, and some
unhappy politicians, are still sent over the Urui heights ; but
the system has been much relaxed of late, and the name of
Siberia is no longer that word of fear which once appalled
the imagination like a living death. It is no uncommon
thing to meet bands of young fellows going up the Ural
slopes from Mesen and Archangel, in search of fortune ; go-
ing over into Siberia as into a promised land !

Many of the terrors which served to shroud Siberia in a
pall have been swej^t away by science. The country has been
opened up. The tribes have become better known. Tomsk,
a name at which the blood ran cold, is seen to be a pleasant
town, lying in a green valley at the foot of a noble range of
heights. It is not far from Perm, which may be regarded as
a distant suburb of Kazan. The tracks have been laid down,
and in a few months a railroad will be made from Perm to
Tomsk.

The world, too, has begun to see that a penal settlement
has, at best, a limited lease of life. A man will make his
home anywhere, and when a place has become his home, it
must have already ceased to be his jail. It is in the nature
of every penal settlement to become unsafe in time ; and a
province of Siberia, peopled by Poles, would be a vast em-
barrassment to the empire, a second Poland in her rear.
Even now, long heads are counting the years when the sons
of political exiles will occupy nil the leading posts in Asia.
Will they not plant in that region the seeds of a Polish pow-
er, and of a Catholic Church ? It is the opinion of liberal
Russians that Siberia will one day serve their country as
England is served by the United States.

The exiles sent to the frontiers are of many kinds ; noble,
ignoble ; clerical, lay ; political offenders, cut-throats, heretics,
coiners, schismatics ; prisoners of the Court, prisoners of the
Law, and prisoners of the Church. The exiles sent away by
a minister of police, by the governor of a province, are not
kept in jail, are not compelled to work. The police has
charge of them in a certain sense ; they are numbered, and
registered in books ; and they have to report themselves at
head-quarters from time to time. Beyond these limits they
are free. You meet them in society ; and if you guess they

Exile. ' 233

are exiles, it is mainly on account of their keener intelligence
and their greater reserve of words. They either live on their
private means, or follow the professions to which they have
been trained. Some teach music and languages, some prac-
tise medicine or law ; still more become secretaries and clerks
to the official Russ. A great many occupy offices in the vil-
lage system. In one day's drive in a tarantass I saw a dozen
hamlets, in which every man serving as a justice of the peace
was a Pole.

Not less than three thousand of the insurgents taken with
arms in their hands during the last rising at Warsaw, were
sent on to Archangel. At first the number was so great that
an insurrection of prisoners threatened the safety of the
town. The governor had to call in troojis from the sur-
rounding country, and the war-office had to fetch back all the
Prussian and Austrian Poles whom, in the first hours of re-
pression, they had hurried to the confines of the Frozen Sea.

They lived in a great yellow building, once used as the ar-
senal of Archangel, before the Government works were car-
ried to the South ; and their lot, though hard enough, was
not harder than that of the people amongst whom they lived.
They were gently used by the officers, who felt a soldierly re-
spect for their courage, and a committee of foreign residents
was allowed to visit them in their rooms. The food allowed
to them was plentiful and good, and many a poor sentinel
standing with his musket in their doorways must have envied
them the abundance of bread and soup.

In squads and companies these prisoners have been brought
back to their homes ; some to their families, others to the
provinces in which they had lived. Many have been freed
Avithout terms ; some have been suffered to return to Poland
on the sole condition of their not going to Warsaw. A hun-
dred, perhaps, remain in the arsenal building, waiting for
their turn to march. Their lot is hard, no doubt ; but where
is the country in which the lot of a political prisoner is not
hard ? Is it Virginia ? is it Ireland ? is it France ?

These prisoners are closely watched, and the chances of es-
cape are faint ; not one adventurer getting off in a dozen
years. A Pole of desperate spirit, who had been sent to
Mesen as a j)lace of greater security than the open city of

23i Free Eussia.

Arclmngel, slipped his guard, crawled through the pine woods
to the sea, hid himself in the forest, until he found an oppor-
tunity of stealing a fisherman's boat, and then pushed boldly
from the shore in his tiny craft, in the hope of being picked
up by some English or Swedish ship on her outward voyage.
Four days and nights he lived on the open sea ; suffering
from chill and damp, and torn by the Jiangs of hunger and
thirst, until the paddle dropped from his hands. His strength
being spent, he drifted with the tide on shore, only too glad
to exchange his liberty for bread. When the officer sent to
make inquiries drove into Mesen, he found the poor fellow
lying half dead in the convict ward.

Beyond this confinement in a bleak and distant land, the
Polish insurgents do not seem to be physically ill-used.
Their tasks are light, tlieir pay is higher than that of the sol-
diers guarding them, and some of the better class are allowed
to work in cities as messengers and clerks. At one time they
were allowed to teach — one man dancing, a second drawing,
a third languages ; but this privilege has been taken from them
on the ground that in the exercise of these arts they were
received into families, and abused their trust.

It is no easy thing to mix these Polish malcontents with
the general race, without jiroducing these results which a
jealous police regard as a " corrugation " of youth.

Man for man, a Pole is better taught than a Russian. He ^
has more ideas, more invention, more j^ractical talent. Hav-
ing more resources, he can not be thrown in the midst of his
fellows Avithout taking the lead. He can put their wishes
into words, and show them how to act. A j^risoner, he be-
comes a clerk : an exile, he becomes on overseer, a teacher —
in fact, a leader of men. Sent out into a distant province, he
gradually but surely asserts his rank. An order from the
police can not rob him of his genius ; and when the ban is
taken from his name, he may remain as a citizen in the town
which gives him a career and perhaps supplies him Avith a
wife. He may get a professor's chair ; he may be made a
judge ; if he has been a soldier, he may be put on the gener-
al's staff.

All this time, and through all these changes, he may hold
on to his hope ; continuing to be a Pole at heart, and cher-

The Siberians. 235

ishing the dream of independence which has proved his bane.
The country that employs him in her service is not sure of
him. In her hour of trial he may betray her to an enemy ;
he may use the power in which she clothes him to deal her a
mortal blow. She can not trust him. She fears his tact, his
suppleness, his capacity for work. In fact, she can neither
get on with him nor without him.
J In the mean time, Poles who have passed through years of J
exile into a second freedom are coming to be known as a class
apart, with qualities and virtues of their own — the growth of
suffering and experience acting on a sensitive and poetic
frame. These men are known as the Siberians.. A Pole with
whom I travel some days is one of these Siberians, and from
his lips I hear another side of this strange stoiy of exile life.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SIBERIANS.

" PIe is one of the Siberians," says my comrade of the road,
after quoting some verses from a Polish jJoet.

" One of the Siberians ?"

" Yes," replies the Pole. " In these countries you find a
people of whom the world has scarcely heard ; a new people,
I might say ; for, while in physique they are like the fighting
men who followed Sobieski to the walls of Vienna, they are in
mind akin to the patient and laborious monks who have built
up the shrines of Solovetsk. Time has done his work upon
them. A sad and sober folk, they go among us by the name
of our Siberians."

" They are Poles by birth ?"

" Yes, Poles by genius and by birth. They are our chil-
dren who have passed through fire; our children whom we
never hoped to see in the living world. Once they were
called our Lost Ones. In Poland we have a tragic phrase,
much used by parting friends: 'We never meet again!'
For many years that parting phrase was fate. An exile, sent
beyond the Ural Mountains, never came back ; he was said to

236 Free .Eussia.

have joined our Lost Ones ; he became to us a memory like
the dead. We could not hope to see his face again, except
in dreams. To-day that line is but a song, a recollection of
the past ; a refrain sung by the waters of Babylon. In Vilna,
in Kazan, in Kief, in a hundred cities widely parted from each
other, you will find a colony of Poles, now happy in their
homes, who have crossed and recrossed those heights ; men
of high birth, and of higher culture than their birth ; men
who have ploughed through the snows of Tomsk ; who have
brought back into the West a pure and bruised, though not
a broken spirit."

" Are these pardoned men reconciled to the Emperor ?"

" They are reconciled to God. Do not mistake me. No
one doubts that the reigning Emperor is a good and brave
man ; high enough to see his duty ; strong enough to face it,
even though his feet should have to stumble long and often
on the rocks. But God is over all, and his Son died for all.
Alexander is but an instrument in His hands. You think me
mystical ! Because my countrymen believe in the higher
powers, they are described by Franks, who believe in nothing,
as dreamers and spiritualists. We dream our dreams, we see
our signs, we practise our religion, we respect our clergy, we
obey our God."

" I have heard the Poles described as women in prayer, as
gods in battle !"

"Like the young men of my circle," he continues, after a
pause, " I took a part in the rising of '48 ; a poor affair, with-
out the merit of being either Polish or Slavonic. That rising
was entirely French. While young in years I had travelled
with a comrade in the west of Europe ; living on the Rhine,
and on the Seine, where we forgot the religion of our mothers
and our country, and learned to think and to speak of Poland
as of a northern France. We called ourselves republicans,
and thought we were great philosophers ; but the idol of onr
fancies was Napoleon the Great, under whose banner so
many of our countrymen threw away their lives. We ceased
to appear at church, and even denied ourselves to the Polish
priest. We hated the Tsar, and we despised the Russians
with all our souls. Two years before the republic was pro-
claimed in the streets of Paris, we returned to Warsaw, in

The Siberians. 237

the hope of finding some field of service against the Tsar ;
but the powers had been too swift for us ; and Cracow, the
last free city of our country, was incorporated with the kai-
sar's empire on the day when I was droj^ped from the taran-
tass at my father's door. France bade us trust in her, and in
the secret meetings which we called among our youthful
friends, we gave up the good old Polish j)salms and signs for
Parisian songs and passwords. In other days we sang ' The
Babe in Bethlehem,' but now, inspired with a foreign hope,
Ave rioted through the Marseillaise. We had become strangers
in the land, and the hearts of our people were not Avith us.
The women fell away, the clergy looked askance, but the un-
popularity of our new devices only made us laugh. We said
to ourselves, we could do without these priests and fools ;
men who were always slaves, and women Avho were always
dupes. As to the crowd of grocers and bakers — we thought
of them only with contempt. Who ever heard of a revolu-
tion made by chandlers ? We were noble, and how could we
accept their help? The year of illusion came at length.
That France to Avhich every Polish eye Avas strained, became
a republic ; and then a troop of revellers, strong enough to
Avliirl through a j^olka, thrcAV themselves on the Russian guns,
and Avere instantly sabred and shot doAvn. Ridden over in
the street, I Avas carried into a house ; and, when my Avounds
were dressed, Avas taken to the castle royal, Avith a hundred
others like myself, to aAvait our trial by commission, and our
sentence of degradation from nobility, exile to Siberia, and
perpetixal service in the mines. My friend Avas Avith me in
the street, and shared my doom."

" Had you to go on foot ?"

" Well — no. For Nicolas, though stern in temper, Avas
not a man to break the law. Himself a prince, he felL a proud
respect for the rights of birth ; and as a noble could not be
reduced to march in the gangs like a peddler and a serf, our
papers were made out in such a Avay that our jDrivileges Avere
not to end until Ave reached Tobolsk. There the permanent
commission of Siberia sat ; and there each man received his
order for the mines. We rode in a light cart, to which three
strong ponies Avere tied Avitli ropes ; and Avhen the roads Avere
hard, we made tAvo hundred A^ersts a day. Our feet Avere

238 Fkee Eussia.

chained, so that we could not take off our boots by niglit oi*
day ; but the people of the stepjDe over which we tore at our
topmost speed, were good and kind to us, as they are to ex-
iles ; giving us bread, dried fish, and whisky, on the sly.
They knew that we were Poles, and, as a rule, their popes are
only too much inclined to abuse the Poles as enemies of God ;
but the Russians, even when they are savages, have a tender-
ness of heart. They know the difference between a political
exile and a thief; for the Government stamps the thief and
murderer on the forehead and the two cheeks Avitli a triple
vor; a black and ghastly stamp which neither fire nor acid
will remove ; and if they think a Pole very wicked in being
a Catholic they feel for his sufferings as a man. Twice I
tried to escape from the mines ; and on both occasions, though
I failed to get away, the kindness of the poor surprised me.
They dared not openly assist my flight, but they were some-
times blind and deaf ; and often, when in hunger and despair
I ventured to crawl near a cabin in the night, I found a ration
of bread and fish, and even a cujd of quass, laid ready on the
window-ledge."

" Who put them there, and why ?"

" Poor peasants, to whom bread and fish are scarce ; in or-
der to relieve the wants of some poor devil like myself."

" Then you began to like the people ?"

"Like them! To understand them, and to see they were
my brothers; but my heart was hard with them for 3-ears.
I was a man of science, as they call it ; and I told myself that
in giving food to the hungry they were only obeying the first
rude instincts of a savage horde. At length a poor priest
came in a cart to the mines. Before his coming I had heard
of him — his name — his mission — and his perils; for Father
Paul was a free agent in his travels ; having chosen this serv-
ice in the desert snows, instead of a stall in some cathedral-
town, from a belief that poor Catholic exiles had a higher
claim on him than sleek and fashionable folk. I knew, from
the report of others, that he made the round of Siberia, sledg-
ing from mine to mine, from mill to mill, in order to keejD
alive in these Catholic exiles some remembrance of their early
faith ; to say mass, to hear confessions, to marry and baptize,
to sanctify the new-made grave. Yet I hardly gave to him a

The Siberians. 239

second thought. What could lie do for me ; a poor priest,
dwelling by choice in a savage ■waste, with no high sympathies
and no great friends ? He was not likely to adore Napoleon,
and he was certain to detest Mazzini's name. How could I
talk with such a man ? The night when he arrived was cold,
his sledge was injured, and the wolves had been upon his
track. Some natural pity for his age and danger drew me to
his side in our wooden shed, and after he was thawed into
life, he spoke to us, even before he tasted food, of that love of
God which was his only strength. When he had supped on
our coarse turnip soup and a little black bread, he lay down
on a mattress and fell asleep. For hours that night I sat and
gazed into his face, his white hair falling on his pillow, and his
two arms folded like a cross upon his breast. If ever man
looked like an angel in his sleep it was Father Paul. Of such
men is the Church of Christ.

" Next day I sought him in his shed, for our inspector turn-
ed this visit into a holiday for his Catholic prisoners; and
there he spoke to me of my country and of my mother, until
my heart was softened, and the tears ran down my face.
Pausing softly in his speech, he bent his eyes upon me, as my
father might have looked, and pressing me tenderly by the
hand, said : ' Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest.' * Blessed are they that
mourn ; for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek ;
for they shall inherit the earth.' I had read these words a
hundred times, for I Avas fond of the New Testament as a
book of democratic texts ; but I had never felt their force un-
til they fell from the lips of Father Paul. I saw they were
addressed to me. My mother Avas about me in the air. I
laid down my philosophy, and felt once more like a little
child."

His voice is low and mellow, but the tones are firm, and
touch my ear like strings in perfect tune. After a pause, I
asked him how his change of feeling worked in his relations
to the Russians,

" A Christian," he replies, " is not a slave of the flesh. His
first consideration Ls for God ; his second for the children of
God, not as they chance to dwell on the Vistula, on the Alps,
on the Frozen Sea, but in every laud alike. He yields uj) the

240 Free Russia.,

sword to those who will one day perish by the sword. His
weapon is the spirit, and he hopes to subdue mankind by
love."

" Tlien you would yield the sword to any one who is proud
and projnpt enough to seize it."

" No ; the sword is God's to give, not mine to yield ; and
for His purposes He gives it unto whom He will. It is a
fearful gift, and no man can be happy in whose grasp it lies."

" Yet many would like to hold it?"

" That is so. The man who first sees fire will burn him-
self. Observe how differently one thinks of war when one
comes to see that men are really the sons of God. All war
means killing some one. Which one? Would you like to
think that in a future world some awful coil of fate should
draw you into slaying an angel ?"

" No ; assuredly."

" Yet men are angels in a lower stage ! We see things as
we feel them. Men are blind, until their eyes are opened by
the love of God ; and God is nearest to the bruised and broken
heart. Hosts of Siberians have come back to Poland ; but
among these exiles there is hardly one Avho has returned as he
went forth."

" They are older."

"They are wisei*. Father Paul, and priests like Father
Paul — for he is not alone in his devotion — have not toiled in
vain. Perhaps I should say they have not lived in vain ; for
the service which they render to the proud and broken spii'it
of the exile, is not the word they utter, but the doctrine they
live. The poets and critics 'who have passed through fire are
known by their chastened style. They have put away France
and the French. They read more serious books ; they speak
in more sober phrase. In every thing except their love of
God and love of country you might think them tame. They
preach but little, and they practise much ; above all, they look
to what is high and noble, if remote, and set their faces stern-
ly against the wanton waste of blood. They know the Rus-
sians better, and they did not need the amnesty, and what has
followed it, in order to feel the brotherhood of all the Slavon-
ic tribes."

" You are a Panslavonist ?"

St. George. 241

" ]^o ! "We want a wider policy and a nobler word. The
Panslavonic party has built a wall round Kief, and they would
build a wall round Russia. They have a Chinese love of walls.
Just look at Moscow ; one Avail round the Kremlin, a second
wall round China-town, a third wall round the city proper.
What we need is the old war-cry of St. Geoi-ge — the patron of
our early dukes, our free cities, and our missionary church."

CHAPTER XLY.

ST. GEORGE.

St. George is a patron saint of all the Slavonic nations ;
whether Wend or Serb, Russine or Russ, Polack or Czeck;
but he is worshipped with peculiar reverence by the elder
Russ. His days are their chief festivals; the days on which
it is good for them to buy and sell, to pledge and marry, to
hire a house, to lease a field, to start an enterprise. Two days
in the year are dedicated in his name, corresponding in their
idiom and their cliiBate to the first day of spring and the last
day of autumn ; days of gladness to all men and women who
live by tending flocks and tilling fields. On the first of these
days the sheds are opened, the cattle go forth to graze, the
shepherd takes up his crook, the dairy-maid polishes her pots
and pans. The second day is a kind of harvest-home, the la-
bor of the year being ovei", the harvest garnered, and the flocks
penned up. But George is a city saint as well as a rustic
saint. His image is the cognizance of their free cities, and of
their old republics ; and the figure of the knight in conflict with
the dragon has been borne in every period by their dukes,
their grand dukes, and their Tsars. His badge occurs on a
thousand crosses, amulets, and charms ; dividing the affections
of a pious and superstitious race with images of the Holy
Trinity and the Mother of God. The knight in conflict with
the dragon was proudly borne on the shield of Moscow hun-
dreds of years before the Black Eagle was added to the Rus-
sian flag. That eagle was introduced by Ivan the Third ; a
prince who began the work (completed by his grandson, Ivan

16

242 . Free Eussia.

the Fourth) of crushing the great boyars and destroying the
free cities. Ivan copied that emblem from the Byzantine
flag ; a symbol of his autocratic power, which many of his
people read as a sign that devil-worship was the new religion
of his army and his court. They saw in this black and raven-
ing bird the Evil Spirit, just as they saw in the white and in-
nocent dove the Holy Ghost. To soothe their fears, St. George
was quartered on the Black Eagle ; not in his talons, but on
his breast ; and in this form the Christian warrior figures on
every Russian flag and Russian coin.

St. George was the patron of an agricultural and pacific race ;
a country that was pious, rich, and free ; and what he was in
ancient times he still remains in the national heart. As the
patron of soldiers he is hardly less popular with princes than
peasants. Peter the Great engraved the figui-e of St. George
on his sword ; the Emj)ress Catharine founded an order in
his name ; and Nicolas built in his honor a magnificent mar-
ble hall. Yet the high place and typical shrine of St. George
is Novgorod the Great.

For miles above and miles below the red1i;remlin walls at
Novgorod, the Volkhof banks are beautiful with gardens,
country houses, and monastic piles. These swards are bright
with grass and dark with firs ; the houses are of Swiss-like
pattern ; and' the convents are a wonder of the land. St.
Cyril and St. Anton lend their names to masses of picturesque
building ; but the glory of this river-side scenery is the splen-
did monastery of St. George.

Built by Jaroslav, a son of St. Vladimir, on a ridge of high
ground, near the jDoint where Lake Ilmen flows into the river
Volkhoff, the Convent of St. George stood close to an ancient
town called Gorod Itski — City of Strength — literally. Fenced
Town. Of this fenced town, a church, with frescoes older
than those of Giotto, still remains ; a church on a bluff, with a
quaint old name of Spas Nereditsa : literally. Our Saviour Be-
yond Bounds. In these old names old tales lie half-entombed.
From this fenced town, the burghers, troubled by a fierce de-
mocracy, appear to have crossed the river and built for them-
selves a kremlin (that is to say, a stone inclosure) two miles
lower down the stream, on a second ridge of ground, sepa-
rated from the first by an impassable swamp. This new city,

St. George. 2-i3

called Novgorod (Xew Town), was to become a wondei* of
the earth ; a trading republic, a rival of Florence and Augs-
burg, a mother of colonies, a station of the Hanseatic League.

Tlie old Church of our Saviour Beyond Bounds, and the
still older Convent of St. George on the opposite bank, were
left in the open country ; left to the neglects of time and to
the ravages of those Tartar begs who swept these plains from
Moscow to the gates of Pskof.

Neglect, if slow, was steady in her task of ruining that an-
cient church, now become a landmark only ; but a landmark
equally useful to the critic of church history, and to the rafts-
man guiding his float aci'oss the lake. As we leave the porch,
an old man, standing uncovered near the door, calls out, " You
come to see the church — the poor old church — but no one
gives a ruble to repair the ^^oor old church ! It is St. George's
Day ; yet no one here remembers the dear old church ! Look
up at the Mother of God ; see how she is tumbling down ; yet
no man comes to save her ! Give some rubles, Gospodin, to
our Blessed Lady, Mother of God !" The old man sighs and
sobs these words m a voice that seems to come from a break-
ing heart.

St. George was able to defend his cells and shrines ; and in
all the ravages committed by Tartar hordes, the rich convent
near Lake Ilmen was never profaned by Moslem hoof. Cold
critics assume that the belt of peat and bog lying south of
Novgorod for a hundred miles was the true defense ; but the
poets of Novgorod assert, in many a song and tale, that they
owed their safety from the infidel spoilers to no freak of na-
ture and no arm of flesh. St. George defended his convent
and his city by a standing miracle ; and, in return for his pro-
tecting grace, the people of this province came to kneel and
pray, as their fathers for a thousand years have knelt and
prayed, before his holy shrine.

My visit to the Convent of St. George is paid (in company
Avith Father Bogoslovski, Russian jjope, and Mr. Michell, Eng-
lish diplomat) on the autumnal festival of the saint. Three or
four thousand pilgrims, chiefly from the town and province of
Novgorod, camp in a green meadow ; their carts unyoked ;
their horses tethered to the ground ; their camp-fires lighted
here and there. Each pilgrim brings a jireseut to St. George ;

24:4: Feee Eussia.

a load of hay, a sack of flour, a pot of wax, a roll of linen, an
embroidered flag. That poor old creature, who can hardly
walk, has brought hira a ball of thread ; a widow's mite, as
welcome as an offering in gold and silver. Booths are built
for the sale of bread and fruit ; tea is fizzing on fifty stalls ;
grapes, nuts, and apples are sold on every side. The peasants
are Avarmly and brightly clad : the men in sheep-skin vests, fur
ci\])S, and boots ; the women in damask gowns and jackets, quilt-
ed and puckered, the edges fringed with silver lace. A fine
day tempts the women and children to throw themselves on
the green in groiips. Monks move among the crowd ; country
folk stare at the finery ; hawkers chaffer with the girls ; and
more than one transparent humbug makes a luarket of relics
and pious ware. Every one is in holiday humor ; and the
general aspect of the field in front of the convent gates is that
of a village fair, with just a dash of the revival camp.

The worshippers are a placid, kindly, and (for the moment)
a sober folk, with quaint expressions and old-world manners.
On the boat we hear a rustic say to his neighbor, " If you are
not a noble, take your bundle off that bench and let me sit
down ; if you are a noble, go into the bdst cabin, your proj)er
place." The neighbor sets his bundle down, and the new-
comer drops into his seat, saying, " See, there is room for all
Christians ; we are equal here, being all baptized." An Eng-
lish churl might have said he had " paid his fare." On board
the same boat a man replies to the steward, who wishes to
turn him out of the dining-room, " Am I not a Christian, and
why should I go out ?" On hiring a boat to cross the river,
Fatlier Bogoslovski says to the oarsman, " Take your sheep-
skin ; you will get a cold." " No ; thank you," answers the
waterman, " Ave never take cold if God is with us." Another
boatman tells us we are doing a "good work " in visiting the
shrines. " Once," he says, " I was sick, and died ; but I pray-
ed to my angel Lazarus to let me live again. He listened to
my prayers, not for my own sake, but for that of ray brother,
who had just come back from Solovetsk. My soul came back,
and we Avere very glad. Your angel can always fetch back
your soul, unless it has gone too far." Here stands a group
of men ; a young fellow with a basket of red apples, two or
three lads, and an old peasant, evidently a stranger to these

St. George. 245

parts. "Eat an apple Avith me, uncle," says the young fellow
to his elder ; for a rustic, who addresses a stranger of his own
age as " brother," always speaks to elderly ones as " uncle."
" Very nice apples," says the stranger, " where were they
blessed ?" " In St. Sophia's, yonder ; try them." Apples are
blessed in church on August 6th, the feast of the transfigura-
tion ; the earliest day on which such garden fruit is certain
to be ripe. It is an old jDopular custom, maintained by the
Church, in the simple interest of the public health.

The scene is lovely. From the belfry of St. George — a
vshaft to compare with the Porcelain Tower — you command a
world of encircling pines, through which flow, j^ast your feet,
the broad and idle waters of the Volkhof ; draining the am-
jDle lake, here shining on your right. Below you spreads the
deep and difficult marsh ; and on the crests of a second ridge
of land sj^rings up a forest of spires and battlements, rich in
all radiant hues ; red walls, white towers, green domes, and
golden pinnacles ; here the kremlin and cathedral, there the
city gate and bridge ; and yonder, across the stream, the
trading town, the bazar, and Yaroslav's Tower ; the long and
picturesque line of iN'ovgorod the Great.

A bell of singular sweetness soothes the senses like a spell.
At one stall you drink tea ; no stronger liquor being sold at
the convent gate. At a second stall you buy candles ; to be
lighted and left on the shrines within. At a third you get
consecrated bread ; a present for your friends and domestics
far away. This fine white bread, being stamped with the
cross and blessed, is not to be bought with money ; for how
could the flesh of our Lord be sold for coin? It is ex-
changed. You give a man twenty kopecks ; he gives you a
loaf of bread. Gift for gift is not barter — you are told — but
brotherly love. On trying the same thing at an apple-stall,
the result appears to you much the saAie. You pay down so
many kopecks ; you take up so much fruit ; the quantity
strictly measured by the amount of coin laid down. You see
no difference between the two ? Then you are not an Orient-
al, not a pilgrim of St. George.

Some twelve or fifteen thousand men and women bring
their offerings, in kind and money, every spring and autumn,
to the shrine of this famous saint.

246 Free Kussia.

CHAPTER XLYI.

NOVGOROD THE GREAT.

Sitting at my window, gazing into space — in front of me
that famous tower of Yaroslav, from which once pealed the
Vechie bell; and, lying beyond this tower, the public square,
the bridge, the Kremlin walls, Sophia's golden domes, and
that proud pedestal of the present reign, which tells of a
Russia counting already her thousand years of political life —
I fall a dreaming of the past, until the sceneries and the peo-
ple come and go in a procession ; not of dead things, but of
quick and passionate men, alive with the energies of past and
coming times.

What were the shapes and meanings of that dream ? A
wide expanse of wood and waste ; forests of fir and silver-
birch ; with tarns and lakes on which the wild fowl of the
country feed their young; and by the shores of which the
shepherds and herdsmen watch their scanty flocks. In the
midst of this wood and water stands a low red wall of stone,
engirding a mass of cabins, with here and there a bigger cab-
in, from the peak of which springs a cross. A river rolls be-
neath the wall, the waters of Avhich come from a dark and
sombre lake. The space within the wall is a kremlin, an in-
closure, and in this kremlin dwell a band of traders and
craftsmen ; holding their own, with watchful eye and ready
hand, like the lodgers in a Syrian khan, against wild and pre-
datory tribes. The life of these men is hard and mean ; the
air is bleak, the soil unfruitful ; and tlie marauders prowl for-
ever at their gates.

A mist of time rolls up and hides the red stone wall and
shingles from my sight, and, when it clears away, a vast and
shining city stands expased to view, with miles of street and
garden, and an outer wall, of sweep so vast that the eye can
hardly take it in, with massive gates and towers to defend these
gates, of enormous strength. The river is now alive with

KOTGOROD THE GrEAT. 247

boats aud rafts ; the streets are thronged with people, and a
hundred domes and steeples glitter in the sun. The red
kremlin, not now used as a castle of defense, is covered with
public buildings; one a cathedral of gigantic size and sur-
passing beauty ; another, a palace with a garden, belted by a
moat ; the citadel in which the traders nestled together for
their common safety having now become the seat of temporal
and spiritual power. Long trains of horses file through the
city gates, bringing in the produce of a thousand hamlets,
which the merchants stoi'e in their magazines for export and
expose in their bazars for sale. These merchants bring their
wares fi'ora East and West, and send them in exchange to
the farthest ports and cities of the earth. Their town is a
free town, to Avhich men from all nations come and go ; a re-
public in the wilderness ; a station of the Hanseatic league,
devoting itself to freedom, commerce, and the liberal arts.
The life of a great country flows into their streets and
squares ; from which run out again the j^rosperous purple
tides into the unknown regions of ice and storm. Forth from
her gates march out the colonists of the Xorth ; the men of
Kem and Holmogory ; men Avho are going forth to plant on
the shores of the Arctic Sea the free institutions under which
they live at home. A prince, elected by the people, serving
while they list, sits in the chair of state, like a Podesta in
Italian towns ; but the actual power is in the hands of the
Vetchie : a popular council, summoned by the ringing of a
bell — the n;i-eat citv bell — which swings in Yaroslav's Tower,
iXow comes a change, which seems to be less a change in
the outward show than in the inner spirit of the placeTl The
merchant has become a boyar, the nobleman a prince] I*ride
of the eye, and lust of the heart, are stamped upon every face.
The rich are very rich ; the poor are very poor ; and men in
cloth of gold affront and trample on men in rags. The
streets — so spacious and so busy ! — are disturbed by faction
fights ; and the Vetchie bell is swinging day and night, as
though some Tartar horde were at the gates. The boyars
have grown too rich for freedom, and the ancients of the city
sell their consciences for gold and state. Deeming them-
selves the equals of kings, they give their city not only the
name of Great, but the name of Lord. On public documents

248 Free Kussia.

they ask— as if in mockery— Who can stand against God, and
Novgorod the Great ?

Again falls the mist of time ; and as it rolls away, the city,
still as vast, though not so busy as of yore, seems troubled in
her splendor by a sudden fear. The bell which tolls her citi-
zens to council, seems wild with pain, and men are hurrying
to and fro along her streets ; none daring, as in olden days, to
snatch down lance and sword, and counsel his fellows to go
forth and fight. For an enemy is nigh their gates, whom they
have much offended, without having virtue enough to resist
his arms. Ivan the Fourth, returning from a disastrous raid
on the Baltic seaboard, hears that in his absence from Moscow,
the citizens of Novgorod, hating his rule, have sent an embas-
sy to the Prince of Sweden, praying him to take them under
his protection ; and in his fury the tyrant swears to destroy
that city, and to sow the site with salt. An army of Tartars
and Kozaks is at the gates ; an army sullen from defeat and
loss, and only to be rallied by an orgy of drink and blood.
Pale with terror, the citizens run to and fro ; the women
shriek and swoon ; and help for them is none, until Father
Nicolas, an ancient man, with flowing beard and saintly face,
stands forwai'd in their midst. A wild creature ; an Elisha
the prophet, a John the Baptist ; he stands up in their meet-
ing, naked from head to feet. Such a man suits the times ;
and as he offers to go forth and save the city from ruin, they
gladly let him try. Nicolas marches forth,, in his nakedness,
to denounce his prince in the midst of his ravenous hordes ;
and when he comes into the camp, he walks np boldly to the
Tsar. Ivan, himself a fanatic, listens to this naked man with
a patience which his guards and ministers observe with won-
der. " Bloodsucker and unbeliever !" cries the hermit, " thou
who art a devourer of Christian flesh — listen to my words.
If thou, or any of these thy servants, touch a hair of a child's
head in yon city — which God preserves for a great purpose —
then, I swear by the angel whom God has given nnto me to
serve me, thou shalt surely die ; die on the instant, by a flash
from heaven !" As he speaks, the sky grows dark, a storm
springs up, and rages through the tents. A pall comes down,
and covers the earth. " Spare me, fearful saint," shrieks the
Tsar, " the city is forgiven ; and let me, in remembrance of

Novgorod the Great. 2-19

tills day, have thy constant prayers." On these conditions
Nicolas withdraws his curse ; and Ivan, marching into the
city with his captives and his treasures, lodges in the Kremlin
and the jDalace, and kneeling before the shrine of St. Sophia,
makes himself gracious to the people for the hermit's sake.

Once more a mist comes down — a thin white veil, which
l^asses like a pout from an infant's face. The city is the
same in size, in splendor, in the fullness of her fearful life.
The Tsar, who went away from her gates low and humble,
has come back, like a wild beast thirsting for blood and prey.
His army camps beyond the walls, and a whisper passes
through the city that the place is to be razed, the women giv-
en up to the Tartars, Avhile the men and boys are to be put
without mercy to the sword. The city razed ! No fancy
can take in the fact ; for Novgorod is one of the largest cit-
ies in Europe, a republic older than Florence, a capital larger
than London, a shrine more sacred than Kief. Her Avails
measure fifty miles, her houses contain eight hundred thou-
sand souls. Yet Ivan has doomed her to the dust. TelUng
off ten thousand gunners of his guard, and thirty thousand
Tartars from the steppe, he gives up the republic to their lust,
bidding them sack and burn, and spare neither man nor maid.
They rush upon the gates ; they scale the wall ; they seize the
bridge, the Kremlin, the cathedral ; and they make themselves
masters of the city, quarter by quarter and street by street.
No pen will paint the horrors of that sack. The wines are
drunk, the jieople butchered, the houses fired. Day by day,
and week after week, the club, the musket, and the torch are
in constant use. The streets run blood, the river is choked
Avitli bodies of the slain. When the work of slaughter stoj)S,
and the Tartars are recalled into their camp, the tale of mur-
dered men, women, and children is found to be greater than
the population of Petersburg in the i^-esent day. The deso-
lation is Oriental and complete.

The city bell — the bell of council and of prayer — is taken
doAvn from iaroslav's Tower and sent to Moscow, wher^ it
EahgsT)eside the Holy Gate — an exile irom the city it roused
to arms, and haply speaking to some burgher's ear and stu-
dent's heart of a time when Russian cities were equal to
those of Italy and England, and her peoj^le Avere as free as
those of Germany and France !

250 Free Kussia.

CHAPTER XL VII.

SERFAGE.

Serfage has but a vague resemblance to the system of
villeinage once so common in the West ; and serfage was not
villeinage under another name. Villeinage was Occidental,
serfage Oriental.

Villein, aldion, colonus, fiscal, homme de pooste, are words
which, in various tongues of Western Europe, mark the man
w^ho belonged to a master, and was bound by law to serve
him. Whether he lived in England, Italy, or France, the
man was stamped with the same character, and laden with
the same obligation. He was a hedger and ditcher — churl,
clod, lout, and boor — heavy as the earth he tilled, and swinish
as the herds he fed. He could not leave his lord ; he tx)uld
not quit his homestead and his field. In turn, his master
could not drive him fi'om the soil, though he might beat him,
force him to work, throw him into prison, and sell his serv-
ices when he sold the land. But hci-e the likeness of serf to
either villein, aldion, colonus, fiscal, or homme de pooste ends
sharply. No one thought the villein was an actual owner of
the soil he tilled, and in no country was the emancipation of
his class accompanied by a cession of the land.

Serfage sprang from a different root, and in a different
time. The great settlement, which is the glory of Alexander's
reign, can only be understood by reference to the causes from
which serfage sprang.

Some of the facts ivhich prove this difference between
Western villeinage and Eastern serfage lie beyond disjiute.
Villeinage was introduced by foreign princes, serfage by na-
tive tsars. Villeinage followed a disastrous war ; serfage
followed liberation from a foreign yoke. Villeinage came
with the dark ages and passed away with them. Serfage
came with the spreading light, with the rising of independ-
ence, with the sentiment of national life. Villeinage was for-

Serfage. 251

gotten by the Rhine, the Severn, and the Seine, before serfage
was established on the Moskva and the Don.

In short, serfage is a historical phase.

In one of the book-rooms of the Academy of Sciences, in
Vassile Ostrof, St. Petersburg, you turn over the leaves of an
early copy — said to be the first — of " Nestor's Chronicle," in
which are many fine drawings of scenes and figures, helping
you to understand the text. This copy is known as the
Radzivil codex. Nestor wrote his book in Kief, a hundred
years before that city was sacked by Batu Khan ; and the
pictures in the Radzivil codex give you the early Russian in
his dress, his garb, and his ways of life. Was he in that
early time an Asiatic, dressed in a sheep-skin robe and a
sheep-skin cap ? In no degree. The Russian boyar dressed
like a German knight ; the Russian mujik dressed like an
English churl.

In Xestor's time the Russians were a free people, ruled ii\V^
one place by elective chiefs, in another place by family cETefsT/^
Tlieyjvvere_a,jti'adin^aiid pacific race ; in the western coun-
tries settled in towns ; in the eastern countries living in tents
and huts. Novgorod, Fskof, and Hlynofj-Wgj-ft-frne. cities, .
ruled by elected magistrates, on the pattern of Florence and
Pisa, Hamburg and Lubeck. In, those days there was neither
s^rf nor need -of serf. But this old Russia fell under the
Mongol yoke. . Broken in the great battle on the Kalka, the
country Avrithed in febrile agony for a hundred and eighty
years ; during whijili^ime her fields were scorched, her cities
sacked, her peasants driiien^from their homes into the forest
and the steppe. She had not yet raised her head from this
blow, when Timur Beg swept over her prostrate form ; an
Asiatic of higher reach and nobler type than Batu Khan ; a
scholar, an artist, a statesman ; though he was still an Asiatic
in faith and spirit. Timur brought with him into Russia
the code of Mecca, the art of Samarcand, the song of Ispahan.
His begs were dashing, his mirzas polished. In the khanates
which he left behind him on the Volga and in the Crimea,
there was a courtesy, a beauty, and a splendor, not to be
found in the native duchies of Nijni, Moscow, Riazan, and
Tver. The native dukes and boyars of these i:)rovinces held
from the Crim Tartar, known to our poets as the Great

252 Free Eussia.

Cham. They swore allegiance to hira ; they paid him anmial
tribute ; they flattered him by adopting his clothes and arms.
The humblest vassals of this Great Cham were the Moscovite
dukes, who called themselves his slaves, and were his slaves.
Standing before him in the streets, they held his reins, and
fed his horses out of their Tartar caps. They copied his
fashions and assumed his names. Their armies, raised by his
consent, were dressed and mounted in the Tartar style. They
fought for him against their country, crushing those free re-
publics in the north which his cavalry could not reach.

This fajoing of dukes and boyars on the Great Cham
brought no good to the rustic ; who might see his patch of
rye trodden down, his homestead fired, and his village cross
profaned by gangs of marauding horse. Even when a Tartar
khan set up his flag on some river bank, as at Kazan, in some
mountain gorge, as at Bakchi Serai, he was still a nomad and
a rider, w^ith his natural seat in the saddle and his natural
home in the tent. A little provocation stirred his blood, and
when his feet w^ere in the stirrups, it was not easy for shep-
herds and villagers to tui'n his lance. A cloud of fire went
with him ; a trail of smoke and embers lay behind him. No
man could be sure of reaping what he sowed ; for an angry
word, an insolent gesture of his duke, might bring that fiery
whirlwind of the Tartar horse upon his crops. What could
he do, except run away ? When year by year this ruin fell
upon him, he left his cabin and his field ; working a little
here, and begging a little there ; but never striking root into
the soil. Now he was a pilgrim, then a shepherd, oftener
still a tramp. To pass more easily to and fro, he donned
the Tartar dress ; a sheep-skin robe and cap ; the robe caught
in at the waist by a belt, and made to turn, so that the wool
could be worn outwardly by day and inwardly by night. In
self-defense he picked up Tartar words, and passed, where he
could pass, for one of the conquering race.

Why should he plough his land for other men to spoil ?
While he was watching his corn grow ripe, the khan of Crim
Tartary, stung by some insult from the duke, might spur out
rapidly from his luxurious camp at Bakchi Serai, and, sweep-
ing through the plains from Perekop to Moscow, waste his
fields with fire.

Serfage. 253

Like causes i:)roclnce like effects. Xomadic lords produce
nomadic slaves. The Russian^peasaut became a. .vagabond,
just as the Syrian fellah becomes a vagabond, when from
year to year his crops have been plundered by the Bedouin
tribes.

When Ivan the Fourtli, having learned from the Tartar
Begs how to rule and fight, broke up the khanates of Ka-
zan and Astrakhan, and ventured to defy the lord of Bakchi
Serai, he found himself an independent jorince at the head of
a country, rich in soil, in capital, and in labor, but with fields
deserted, villages destroyed, populations scattered, and public
roads unsafe. The land was not unpeojjled ; but the peasants
had lost their sense of home, and the mujiks wandered from
town to town. Labor w^as dear in one place, worthless in an-
other. Half the land, even in the richer provinces, lay waste ;
and every year some district was scourged by famine, and by
the epidemics w^hich follow in the wake of famine. How
were the peasants to be " fixed " upon the land ?

For seventy years this question troubled the court in the
Kremlin, even more than that court was troubled by Church
controversy, Tartar raid, and family strife ; although within
this period of seventy years St. Philip was murdered, the
Great Cham burnt a portion of Moscow, Dimiti'i the legiti-
mate heir was killed, and Boris Godounof usurped the throne.
Ivan the Fourth tried hard to induce his people to return
upon their lands ; by giving up many of the crown estates ;
by building villages at his own expense ; by coaxing, thrash-
ing, forcing bis people into order. Even if this reformer
never used the term serf (krepostnoi, a man " fixed " or " fast-
ened,)" he is not the less — for good and ill — the author of
that Russian serfage which is passing away before our eyes.

254 Free Eussia.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A TARTAR COURT.

Ix that gorgeous chamber of the KremHn known as the
treasury of Moscow, stands an armed and mounted figure,
richly dight, and called a boyar of the times of Ivan the
Fourth. Arms, dress, accoutrements, are those of a niirza, a
Tartar noble ; and an inscrij^tion on the drawn Damascus
blade informs the pious Russian that there is but One God,
and that Mohammed is the prophet of God ! Yet the figure
is really that of a boyar of the times of Ivan the Fourth.

No prince in the line of Russian rulers is so great n, puzzle
as this Ivan the Fourth. In spite of his many atrocious
deeds, he is still regarded by many of his critics as an able
reformer and a patriotic prince. Much, indeed, must be said
in his favor by all fair writers. To him the Moscovites owe
their deliverance from the Tartar yoke. For them he con-
qiTered the kingdom of Kazan, the empire of Siberia, the
khanate of Astrakhan. On all their frontiers he subdued the
crescent to the cross. With Swedes and Poles he waged an
equal, sometimes a glorious war. He opened his country to
foreign trade ; he built ports on the Baltic, on the Caspian,
on the Frozen Seas. The glories of his reign were of many
kinds. He brought printers from the Rhine, and published
the Acts of the Apostles in his native tongue. He sent to
Frankfort for skillful physicians, to London for artificers in
wood and brass. Collecting shipwrights at his river-town
of Vologda, he caused them to build for him a fleet of rafts
and boats, on which he could descend with his treasures to
the sea. He called a parliament of his estates to consult on
the public weal. He reduced the unwritten laws of his
country to a code. He put down mendicancy in his empire ;
laid his reforming hand on the clergy ; and published a uni-
form confession of faith.

Ivan was a savage-; though he was a popular savage. Ter-

A Tartar Court. 255

rible he was ; bul terrible to tbe rich and^great. In fact^he
M\as a reformino- Tartar khan. If he taxed the merchants, he
built hamlets for peasants at his private cost. If he crushed
the free cities, he settled tlmnsnuds of poor on the j)ublic
lands. If he destroyed the princes and boyars as a ruling
caste, he piit into their places the official chins. If he ruled
by the club, he also tried to rule by the printing-press. If
he sacked Novgorod and Pskoff, he built a vast number of
churches, villages, and shrines. A hnH^lpr by policy as well
as by nature, he found an empire of logs, which he hoped to
bequeath to his son as an empire of stone. Forty stone
churches, sixty stone monasteries, owe their fovtndation to
his care. He raised the quaint edifice of St. Vassili, near the
Kremlin wall, which he called after his father's patron saint.
He is said to have built a hundred and fifty castles, and more
than three hundred communes.

Wishing to settle and civilize his people, the reformer
sought his models in those Tartar provinces which he had
recently subdued. Kazan and Bakchi Serai were nobler
cities than Vladimir and Moscow ; while the poorest mirza
of the Great Cham's court was far more splendid in arms
and dress than any boyar in Ivan's court.

Ivan began to tartarize his kingdom by dividing it into two
parts — personal and provincial ; the first of which he ruled in
person ; the second by deputies wielding the power of Tartar
begs. He raised a regular army — then the only one in Eu-
rope— which he ai'med and mounted in the Tartar style. He
raised a body-guard to whom he gave the Tartar tafia ; a cap
that no Christian in his duchy was allowed to wear. Like
the Great Cham, he set apart rooms in his palace for a
harem; shut up his wives and daughters from the public
eye ; and changed the new fashion of excluding women from
his court into a binding rule. His dukes and boyars followed
him, until every house had a harem, and the seclusion of fe-
males was as strict in Moscow as in Bokhara and Bagdad.

These customs kept their ground until the times of Peter
the Great. The land was governed by provincial begs, called
boyars and voyevods ; the army was drilled and dressed like
Turkish troops ; and the women Avere kept in harems like the
Sultan's odalisques. Breaking through the customs intro-

256 Fkee Kussia.

duced by Ivan, Peter oi^ened the imperial harem ; showed
his wife in public ; and invited ladies to appear at coixrt.
Yet something of this Turkish fashion may still be traced in
Russian family life, especially in the country towns. As
every great house had its harem — a Avoman's quarter, into
which no stranger was allowed to set his foot — so every great
family had a separate cemetery for the female sex. A few
of these old cemeteries still remain as convents ; for example,
the Novo-Devictchie, Maidens' Convent, in the suburbs of
Moscow ; and the Convent of the Ascension, in the Kremlin,
near the Holy Gate ; the burial-place of all the Tsarinas, from
the time of Ivan the Terrible down to that of Peter the Great.

By subtle tricks and surprises, Ivan set his dukes and boy-
ars quarrelling with each other, and when they were hot with
speech he would get them to accuse each other, and so despoil
them both. In time he procured the surrender to him of
nearly all their historical rights and titles ; when, like a sul-
tan, he forced them to receive his gifts and graces, under their
hands, as slaves. He introduced the Oriental practice of
sending men, under forms of honor, into distant parts ; in-
venting the political Siberia. His dukes were reduced in
power, his boyars plundered of their wealth. The princes
were too numerous to be touched, for in Ivan's time every
third man in Moscow was a prince; and an English trader
used to hire such a man to groom his horse or clean his boots.
Not many of the ancient dukes survived this reign ; but the
Narichkins, the Dolgoroukis, the Golitsin, and four or five
others, escaped ; and these historical families look with pat-
ronizing airs on the imperial race. The Narichkins have
married with Roman of s. One of this house Avas offered the
title of imperial highness, and declined it, saying proudly to
his sovereign, "No, sir, I am Narichkin." In the same
spirit, Peter Dolgorouki, Avhen he heard that the Emperor
had taken away his title of prince, wrote to his majesty,
" How can you pretend to degrade me ? Can you rob me of
my ancestors, who were grand dukes in Russia when yours
were not yet counts of Holstein Gottorp ?"

Moscow was governed like a Tartar camp. Ivan's body-
guards (opritchniki), roved about the streets in their Tartar
caps, abusing the people of every grade, boyar and burgher,

St. Philip. 257

mujik and peasant, as though they had been men of a differ-
ent race and faith ; robbing houses, carrying off women, mur-
dering men ; so that a stranger Avho met a comj^any of these
fellows in the Chinese town or under the Kremlin wall, im-
agined that the city had been given up to the soldiery for
spoil.

This effort to settle the country on Tartar principles turned
the Church against the Tsar, and led to the retirement of
Athanasius, the dismissal of German, and the murder of
Philip. St. Philip was the martyr of Russia — slain for de-
fending his country and his Church against this tartarizing
Tsar.

Walk into the great Cathedral of the Ascension any hour
of the day in any season of the year, and — on the right wing
of the altar — you will find a crowd of men and women pros-
trate before one silver shrine. It is the tomb of St. Philip,
martyr and saint. Every one comes to him, every one kisses
his temples and his feet. The murder of this saint is one of
those national offenses which a thousand years of penitence
will not cleanse away. The penitent prays in his name ; fasts
in his name ; burns candles in his name ; and groans in spirit
before the tomb, as though he were seeking forgiveness for
some personal crime.

The tale of Philip's conflict with Ivan — a conflict of the
Christian Church against the Tartar court — may be briefly
told.

CHAPTER XLIX.

ST. PHILIP.

Early in the reign of Ivan the Fourth (1539), a pilgrim,
poor in garb and purse, but of handsome presence, landed
from a boat at the Convent of Solovetsk. He came to pray ;
but after resting in the island for a little while, he took the
vows and became a monk. Under the name of Philip, he
lived for nine or ten years in his lowly cell. The monks, his
brethren, saw there was some mystery in his life ; his taste,
his learning, and his manner, all announcing him as one of

17

258 Fkee Kussia.

those ineu who belong to the higher ranks. But the lowly
bi'Other held his peace. Nine years after his arrival, the prior
of his couveut died, and lie was called by common assent to
the vacant chair.

There was, in truth, a mystery in this monk. Among the
proudest people in ]Moscow lived, in those days, the family of
Ivolichelf ; to whom a sou, Fedor, was born ; the heir to a
vast estate no less thau to a glorious name. A pious mother
taught the child to be good, according to her lights ; to read
about saints, to say long prayers, to listen for church-bells,
and run with ardor to the sacrilice of mass. But being of
noble birth, and having to serve his prince, Fedor was
trained to ride and fence, to hunt and shoot, as well as to
manage his fathers forests, fisheries, and farms. At twenty-
six he was introduced to Ivan, then a child of four ; and as
the young prince took a fancy for him, he was muc.h at court,
admired by all women, envied by many men. It seemed as
though Fedor Kolicheff had only to stay at court in order to
become a minister of state. But his heart was never in the
life he led ; the Kremlin was a nest of intrigue ; the country
round the city was troubled by a thousand crimes. Distressed
by what he saw going on, the favorite pined for a religious
life ; and quitting the world in silence, giving up all he pos-
sessed, he wandered from Moscow in a pilgrim's garb.
Trudgingon foot, a staff in his hand, a wallet by his side, he
found his way through the trackless forests of the north ;
now stopping in a peasant's hut, where he toiled on the land
for his daily food ; now dropping do'mi the Dvina on a raft,
and tugging for his passage at the oars. Crossing over to
the convent, he became a yionk, a priest, a prior, without be-
traying the secret of his noble birth and his place at court.

On coming into power, he set his heart on bringing back
the convent to her ancient life. He wore the frock of Zosima,
and set up an image over Savatie's tomb. Taking these
worthies as his guides, he introduced the rule of assiduous
work ; invented forms of labor ; making wax and salt ; im-
proving the fisheries and farms ; building stone chapels ; and
teaching some of the fathers how to write and paint. Much
of what is best in the convent, in the way of chapel, shrine,
and picture, dates from his reign as prior. But Philip was

St. Philip. 259

called from his cell in the Frozen Sea to occupy a loftier and
more perilous throne.

Ivan, liking the old friend of his youth, consulted him on
state affairs, and called him to the Kremlin to give advice.
On these occasions, Philip was startled at the change in Ivan ;
who, from being a paladin of the cross, had settled down in
his middle age into a mixture of the gloomy monk and the
savage khan. The change came on him with the death of
his wife and the conquest of Kazan ; after which events in his
life he married two women, dressed himself in Tartar clothes,
and adopted Asiatic ways. Like a chief of the Golden horde,
he went about the streets of Moscow, ordering this man to be
beaten, that man to be killed. The square in front of the
Holy Gate was red with blood ; and every house in the city
was filled with sighs and groans.

Driving from their altars two aged prelates who rebuked
his crimes, Ivan (in 1566) selected the Prior of Solovetsk as a
man who would shed a light on his reign without disturbing
him by personal reproof. Philip tried to escape this perilous
post, but the Tsar insisted on his obedience ; and with hea\-y'
heart he sailed from his asylum in the islands, conscious of
going to meet his martyr's crown.

Ivan had judged the monk in haste. Philip was no court-
ier ; not a man to say smooth things to princes ; for under
his monk's attire he carried a heart to feel, an eye to see, and
a tongue to spjeak. In passing from Solovetsk to Moscow,
he passed through Novgorod — a city disliked by Ivan on ac-
count of her wealth, her freedom, and her laws ; when a crowd
of burghers poured from the gates, fell on their knees before
him, and implored him, as a pastor of the poor, to plead their
cause before the Tsar, then threatening to ravage their dis-
trict and destroy their town. On reaching Moscow, he spoke
to Ivan as to a son ; beseeching him to dismiss his guards, to
put off his strange habits, to live a holy life, and to rule his
people in the sjjirit of their ancient dukes.

Ivan waxed red and wroth ; he wanted a priest to bless, and
not to curse. The t\Tant grew more violent in his moods ;
but the new Metropolite held out in patient and unyielding
meekness for the ancient ways. Once, when Philip was per-
forming mass, the Tsar and his guards, attired in their Tartar

260 Free Russia.

dress, came into bis churcli, and took up their ranks, while
Ivan himself strode up to the royal gates. As Philip went on
with liis service, taking no notice of the prince, a bo}'ar cried,
" It is the Tsar !" "I do not recognize the Tsar," said Phil-
ip, " in such a dress." The Tartar cap, the Tartar whip, were
seen in every public place. The Tartar guards were masters
of the city, and the streets were everywhere filled with the tu-
mult of their evil deeds. They felt no reverence for holy
things, and hurt the popular mind by treating the sacred im-
ages with disdain. In a procession, the Metropolite noticed one
of these courtiers insolently Avearing his Tartar cap. " Who
is that man," asked Philip of the Tsar, " that he should pro-
fane with his Tartar costume this holy day?" Doffing his
cap, the courtier denied that he was covered, and even charged
the Metropolite with saying what was false. As every man
in trouble went to his Metropolite for counsel, the boyars ac-
cused him of inciting the people against their prince. "When
Ivan married his fourth wife, a thing unlawful and unclean,
the Metropolite refused to admit the marriage, and bade the
Tsar absent himself from mass. Rushing from his palace into
the Cathedral of the Annunciation, Ivan took his seat and
scowled. Instead of pausing to bless him, Philip went ou
with the sei'vice, iintil one of the favorites strode up to the al-
tar, looked him boldly in the face, and said, in a saucy voice,
"The Tsar demands thy blessing, priest !" Paying no heed
to the courtier, Philip turned round to Ivan on his throne.
" Pious Tsar !" he sighed ; " why art thou here ? In this
place we offer a bloodless sacrifice to God." Ivan threatened
him, by gesture and by word. " I am a stranger and a pil-
grim on earth," said Philip; "I am ready to suffer for the
truth."

He was made to suffer much, and soon. Dragged from his
altar, stripped of his robe, arrayed in rags, he was beaten with
brooms, tossed into a sledge, driven through the streets, mock-
ed and hooted by armed men, and thrown into a dungeon in
one of the obscurest convents of the town. Poor people knelt
as the sledge drove past them, every eye being wet with tears,
and every throat being choked with sobs. Philip blessed them
as he went, saying, " Do not grieve ; it is the will of God ; pra}',
pray !" The more patiently he bore his cross the more these

St. Philip. 261

people sobbed and cried. Locked in his jail and laden with
chains, not only round his ankles but round his neck, he was
left for seven days and nights without food and drink, in the
hope that he would die. A courtier m'Iio came to see him was
surprised to find him engaged in prayer. His friends and
kinsmen were arrested, j udged, and put to death, for no offense
save that of sharing his name and blood. " Sorcerer ! dost
thou know this head?" was one laconic message sent to Phil-
ip from the Tsar. " Yea !" murmured the prisoner, sadly ;
" it is that of my nephew Ivan." Day and night a crowd of
people gathered round his convent-door, until the Tsar, who
feared a rising in his favor, caused him to be secretly removed
to a stronger prison in the town of Tver.

One year after this removal of Philip fi'om Moscow (15G9),
Ivan, setting out for Novgorod, and calling to mind the speech
once made by Philip in favor of that citj^, sent a ruffian to kill
him. " Give me thy blessing !" said the murdei'er, coming
into his cell. " Do thy master's work," replied the holy man ;
and the deed w^as quickly done.

The martyred saint remained a few years in Tver — whence
he was removed to Solovetsk, an incorruptible frame ; and lay
in that isle until 1660, in the reign of Alexie, father of Peter
the Great, in the days of tribulation, when the country was
tried by sickness, famine, and foreign wars, his body was
brought to Moscow, as a solemn and penitential act, by which
the ruler and his people hoped to appease the wrath of heaven.
The Tsar's penitent letter of recall was read aloud before his
tomb in Solovetsk, as though the saint could see and hear.
The body was found entire, as on the day of sej^ulture — a
sweet smell, as of herbs and flowers, coming out from beneath
the coffin-lid. A grand procession of monks and pilgrims
marched with the saint from Archangel to Moscow, where
Alexie met them in the Kremlin gate, and carried the sacred
dust into the cathedral, where it was laid, in the corner of
glory, in a magnificent silver shrine.

On the day of his coronation, every Emperor of Russia has
to kneel before his shrine and kiss his feet.

262 Free Russia.

CHAPTER L.

Boris Godunof, general, kinsman, successor of Ivan the
Fourth, reduced the principle of serfage into legal form
(IGOl). An able and patriotic man, Godunof, designed to
colonize his bare river-banks and his empty steppe. He
meant no harm to the rustic — on the contrary, he hoped to
do him good; his project of "fixing" the rustic on his land
Avas treated as a great reform ; and after taking counsel with
his boyars, he selected the festival of St. George, the patron
of free cities and of the ancient Russians, for his announce-
ment that every peasant in the empire should in future till
and own forever the lands which he then tilled and held.

Down to that time, the theory of land was that of an Asi-
atic horde. J'rom the Gulf of Venice to the Bay of Bengal
the tenure of land might vaiy with race and clime ; yet in
every country where the Tartars reigned, the original proj^er-
ty in the soil was everywhere said to be lodged in sultan,
shah, mogul, and khan. The Russians, having lost the usage
of their better time, transferred the rights which they ac-
quired from Tartar begs and khans to their victorious
prince.

This prince divided the soil according to his will ; in one
place founding villages for peasants, in a second place settling
lands on a deserving voyavod, in a third j^lace buying off an
enemy Avith gifts of forests, fisheries, and lands ; exactly in
the fashion of Batu Khan and Timur Beg. This system of
giving away crown lands was carried so far that when Go-
dunof came to the throne (in 1598), he found his duchies
and khanates consisting of a great many estates without la-
borers, and a great many laborers without estates. The jjeas-
ants were roving hordes ; and Godunof meant to fix these
restless classes, by assigning to every family a personal and
hei'editary interest in the soil. The evil to be cured was an

Serfs. 263

Oriental evil ; and he sought to cure it in the Oriental way.
The khans had done the same; and Godunof only extended
and defined their method, so as to bring a larger area of
country under spade and plough.

There is reason to believe that this festival of St. George
(in 1601) was hailed by peasant and boyar as a glorious day;
that the decree which established serfage in Russia was ac-
cepted as a great and popular reform. To understand it, we
must lay aside all notion of serfage in Moscow and Tamboff
being the same thing as villeinage in Surrey and the Isle of
France.

Serfage was a great act of colonization. Much of what was
done by Godunof Avas politic, and even noble ; for he gave
up to his people millions of acres of the crown estates. The
soil was given to the peasant on easy terms. He was to live
on his land, to plough his field, to build his house, to pay his
rates, and to serve his country in time of war. The chief con-
cession made by the peasant, in exchange for his jDlot of
ground, was his vagabond life.

To see that the serf — the man " fixed " on the soil — observed
the terms of settlement, the prince appointed boyars and voye-
vods in every province as overseers ; a necessary, and yet a
fatal step. The overseer, a strong man dealing with a weak
one, had been trained under Tartar rule ; and just as the Tsar
succeeded to the khan, the boyar looked upon himself as a
successor to the beg. Abuses of the system soon crept in ;
most of all that Oriental use of the stick, which the boyar bor-
rowed from the beg ; but a serf had to endure this evil — not
in his quality of serf, but in his quality of Russian. Every
man struck the one below him. A Tsar boxed a boyer, a
boyar beat a prince. A colonel kicked his captain, and a cap-
tain clubbed his men. This use of the stick is in every region
of the East a sign of lordship ; and a boyar who could flog a
peasant for neglecting to till his field, to repair his cabin, and
to pay his rates, would have been more than man if he had not
learned to consider himself as that peasant's lord.

Yet the theory of their holding was, that the peasant held
his land of the crown ; even as the boyar held his land of the
crown. A bargain was made between two consenting parties
— peasant and noble — under the authority of law, for their

264 Free Eussia.

mutual dealing with a certain estate — consisting (say) of land,
lake, and forest, with the various rites attached to ownership
— liunting, shooting, fishing, fowling, trespass, right of way,
right of stopi^age, right of dealing, and the like. It was a
bargain binding the one above as much as it bound the one
below. If a serf could not quit his homestead, neither could
the lord eject him from it. If the serf was bound to serve
his master, he was free to save and hold a proj^erty of his
own. If local custom and lawless temper led a master to fine
and flog the serf, that serf could find some comfo t in the
thought that the fields which he tilled belonged to himself
and to his commune by a title never to be gainsaid. A peas-
ant's rhyme, addressed to his lord, defines the series of his
rights and liabilities :

" My soul is God's,
My land is mine,
My head's the Tsar's,
My back is thine ! "

A likeness to the serf may be found in the East, not in the
West. The closest copy of a serf is the ryot of Bengal.

Down to the reign of Peter the Great the system went on
darkening in abuse. The overseer of serfs became the owner.
In lonely districts who was to protect a serf? I have my-
self heard a rustic ordered to be flogged by his elder, on the
bare request of two gentlemen, who said he was drunk and
could not drive. The two gentlemen were tipsy; but the
elder knew them, and he never thought of asking for their
proofs. A clown accused by a gentleman must be in the
wrong. " God is too high, the Tsar too distant," says the
peasant's saw. In those hard times the inner spirit overcame
the legal form ; and serfs were beaten, starved, transported,
sold ; but always in defiance of the law.

Peter introduced some changes, which, in spite of his good
intentions, made the evil worse. He stopped the sale of serfs,
apart from the estate on which they lived — a long step for-
ward; but he clogged the beneficial action of his edict by
converting the old house-tax into a poll-tax, and levying the
whole amount of tax upon the lord, to Avhom he gave tlie
right of collecting his quota from the serfs. A master armed
with such a power is likely to be either worse than a devil or

Serfs. 265

better than a man. Peter took from the religious bodies the
right, which they held in common with boyars and princes,
of possessing serfs. The monks had proved themselves unfit
for such a trust ; and as they held their lands by a title higher
than the law can give, it was hard for a convent serf to believe
that any part of the fields he tilled was actually his own.

Catharine followed Peter iu his war on Tartar dress,
beards, manners, and traditions ; but she also set her face, as
Peter had done, on much that was native to the soil. She
meant well by her people, and the charter of rights, which
she granted to her nobles, laid the foundation in her country
of a permanent, educated, middle class. She studied the
question of converting the serf's occupancy into freehold.
She confiscated the serfs attached to convents, placing them
under a separate jurisdiction; and she published edicts tend-
ing to improve the position of the peasant towards his lord.
But these imperial acts, intended to do him good, brought
still worse evils on his head ; for serfage, heretofore a local
custom — found in one province, not in the adjoining prov-
ince— found in Moscow and Yo rone j, not in Harkof and Kief
— was now recognized, guarded and defined by general law.
Catharine's yearning for an ideal order in her states induced
her to "fix" the peasant of Lithuania and Little Russia on
the soil, just as Godunof had " fixed " the peasant of Great
Russia, giving him a homestead and a property forever on
the soil. Paul, her son, took one stride forward in limiting
the right of the lord to three days' labor in the seven — an
edict which, though never put in force, endeared Paul's mem-
ory to the commons, many of whom regard him as a martyr
in their cause. Yet Paul is one of those princes who extend-
ed the serf-empire. Paul created a new order of serfs in the
appanage peasants, serfs belonging to members of the imjoe-
rial house, just as the crown peasants belonged to the crown
domain.

Alexander the First set an example of dealing Avith the
question by establishing his class of free peasants ; but the
wars of his reign left him neither time nor means for con-
ducting a social revolution more imposing and more perilous
than a political revolution, and after a few years had passed
his free peasants fell back into their former state. Nicolas

266 Free Kussia.

was not inclined by nature to reform ; the okl, unchanging
Tartar spirit was strong witliin him ; and he rounded the
serfage system by placing the free peasants, colonists, forest-
ers, and miners, under a special administration of the state.
Every rustic in the land who had no master of his own be-
came a peasant of the crown.

But, from the reign of Ivan (ending in 1598) to the reign
of Nicolas (ending in 1855), every patriot who dared to speak
his mind inveighed against the abuse of serfage^as a thing
unknown to his country in her hajspier times. Every false
pretender, every reckless rebel, who took np arms against his
sovereign, wrote on his banner, " freedom to the serf." Sten-
ka Raziu (c. IGVO) proclaimed, from his camp near Astrakhan,
four articles, of which the first and second ran — deposition of
the reigning house and liberation of the serfs ! Pugacheff,
in a revolt more recent and more formidable than that of Ra-
zin (c. 1770), publicly abolished serfage in the empire, taking
the peasants from their lords, and leaving them in full posses-
sion of their lands. Pestel and the conspirators of 1825 put
the abolition of serfage in the front of their demands.

Catharine's wish to deal with the question was inspired by
Pugacheff's letters of emancipation ; and on the very eve of
his triumph in St. Isaac's Square, the Emperor Nicolas named
a secret committee, to report on the social condition of his
empire, chiefly with the serf in view. At the end of three
years, Nicolas, warned by their reports, drew iip a series of
acts (1828-'9), by which he founded an order of honorary cit-
izens (not members of a guild), and set the peasants free from
their lords. These acts were never printed, for as time wore
on, and things kejDt quiet, the Emperor saw less need for
change. The July days in Paris frightened him ; and having
already sent out orders for the masters to treat their serfs
like Christian men, and to be content in exacting three days'
work in seven, according to the wish of Paul, the sovereign
thought he had done enough. His act of emancipation was
not to see the light.

In his later years the question troubled the Emperor Nico-
las day and night. In spite of his glittering array of troops,
he felt that serfage left him weak, even as the great division
of his people into Orthodox and Old Believers left him Aveak.

Emaxcipation. 267

How weak these maladies of Ins country made him he only
learned in the closing hours of his eventful life ; and then (it
is said) he told his son what he had done and left undone, en-
joining him to study and comi^lete his work.

It was well for the serf that Nicolas made him wait. The
project of emancipation, drawn up under the eyes of Nicolas,
was not aTlussmTrnocumcnriu eTlher"form or~s^ Ibiit a

Gei-man state jciper, based on the misleading Avestern notion
that serfage was Imt villeinage under a better name. "The
principle laid dow n by Nicolas was, that the serf should ol)-
"tain his personal freedom, and__the lord should take posses-
sion of his land !

CHAPTER LI.

EMANCIPATION.

On the day when Alexander the Second came to his crown
(1855), both lord and serf expected from his hands some great
and healing act. The peasants trusted him, the nobles feared
him. A panic seized upon the landlords. " What," they
cried, " do you expect ? The country is disturbed ; our
property will be destroyed. Look at these louts whom you
talk of rendering free! They can neither read nor write;
they have no capital ; they have no credit ; they have no en-
terprise. AVhen they are not praying they are getting drunk.
A change may do in the Polish provinces ; in the heart of
RussIa7lTcA'erl** TlTe~Government met this storm in the
higher circles by pacific words and vigorous acts 'jThe Em-
peror saying tojjvery one whom his voice could reach that
the'peyil fay 'iirdomg nothing, not in doing much.'\ Slowly
but surely his opinion made its way.

Addresses from the several provinces came in. Commit-
tees of advice were formed, and the Emperor sought to en-
gage the most active and liberal spirits in his task. When
the public mind was opened to new lights, a grand commit-
tee was named in St. Petersburg, consisting of the ministers
of state, and a few members of the imperial council, ovei*
Avhom his majesty undertook to preside. A second body,

268 Free Russia.

called the reporting committee, was also named, under the
presidency of Count Rostovtsef, one of the pardoned rebels
of 1825. The grand committee studied the principles which
ought to govern emancipation ; the reporting committee stud-
ied and ai-ranged the facts. A mighty heap of papers was
collected ; eighteen volumes of facts and figures were print-
ed ; and the net results were thrown into a draft.

The reporting committee having done their work, two
bodies of delegates from the provinces, elected by the lords,
were invited to meet in the capital and consider this draft.
These provincial delegates raised objections, which they sent
in writing to the committee; and the new articles drawn up
by them were laid before the Emperor and the grand com-
mittee in an amended draft.

r^IJp to this point the draft was in the hands of nobles and
land-owners ; A\Tio cITew it up Jn their dass-interesTs, ahTl~ac-
ctrrding to their class-ideasTf ^If it recognized the serfs Tight
1o~|:)ersonarTreedom, it deni_ed him anyi. rights in the soil.
This princiijle oT^' liberty without land " was the battlo-crj of
all parties in The upper ranks ; and many persons knew that
^ch was the principle laid down in the late Emperor's secret
and abortive act. How could a commi_ttee of landlords, trem-
bling for their rents, do otherwise ? [^" Emancipation, if we
must," they sighed, "but emancipation without theland/^
The provincial delegates"sIoulIyTVrged this"pnnciple'y"tlie re-
porting committee embodied it in their draft. Supported by
these two bodies, it came before the grand committee. Eng-
land, France, and Germany were cited ; and as the villeins in
those countries had received no grants of lands, it was re-
solved that the emancipated serfs should have no grants of
land. The grand committee passed the amended draft.

Then, happily, the man was found. Whatever these scribes
could say, the Emperor knew that forty-eight millions of his^
people looked to him for justice ; and that every man in those
forty-eight millions felt that his right in the soil was just as
good as that of the Emperor in his crown. He saw that free-
dom without the means of living would be to tlie peasant a
^atatgif^I TTnwilliug to see a j^opular revolution turned into
tKe movement of a class, he would not consent to make nivn
paupers by the act which pretended to make them free.

Emancipation. 269

^' Liberty and land" — that was the Alexandrine principle; a~]
golden precept wincn he neid against tne best^ancl^oldest
councillorsliTTiis court. - \

The acts of liis committees left him one course, and only
one. lie could appeal to a higher court. Some members of
the grand committee, knowing their master's mind, had voted
against tlie draft ; and now the Emperor laid that draft be-
fore the full council, on the ground that a measure of such
importance should not be settled in a lower assembly by a
divided vote. Again he met with selfish views. The full
council consists of princes, counts, and generals — old men
mostly — who have little more to expect from the crown, and
every reason to look after the estates they have acquired.
They voted against the Emperor and the serfs.

When all seemed lost, however, the fight was won. Not
until the full council had decided to adopt the draft, could
the Emperor be persuaded to use his power and to save his
country ; but on the morrow of their vote, the prince, in his
quality of autocrat, declared that the principle of " Liberty
and land " was the principle of his emancipation act.

On the third of March, 1861 (Feb. 19, O. S.), the emancipa-
tion act was signed.

r The rustic population then consisted of twenty-two millions
of common serfs, three millions of appanage peasants, and
twenty-three millions of crown peasants.', The first class Avere
enfranchised by that act ; and a separate law has since been
jjassed in favor of these crown peasants and appanage peas-
ants, who are now as free in fact as they formerly were in
name.

A certain j^ortion of land, varying in different provinces
according to soil and climate, Avas affixed to every " soul ;"
and government aid was pi'omised to the peasants in buying
their homesteads and allotments. The serfs were not slow to
take this hint. Down to January 1, 1869, more than half the
enfranchised male serfs have taken advantage of this promise;
and the debt now owing from the 2>eople to the crown (that
is, to the bondholders) is an enormous sum.

The Alexandrine principle of " liberty and land " being
made the governing rule of the emancipation act, all rea-
sonable fear lest the rustic, in receiving his freedom, might

270 Free Kussia,

at once go wandering, was taken into account. Nobody
knew how far the serf had been broken of those nomadic
habits which led to serfage. Every one felt some doubt as
to whether he could live with liberty and law ; and rules were
framed to prevent the return to those social anarchies which
had forced the crown to " settle " the country under Boris
Godunof and Peter the Great. These restrictive rules were
nine in number: (1.) a peasant was not to quit his village
unless he gave up, once and forever, his share of the com-
munal lands ; (2.) in case of the commune refusing to accept
his portion, he was to yield his plot to the general landlord ;
(3.) he must have met his liabilities, if any, to the Emperor's
recruiting officers; (4.) he must have j)aid up all arrears of
local and imperial rates, and also paid in adyance such taxes
for the current year ; (5.) he must have satisfied all private
claims, fulfilled all personal contracts, under the authority of
his cantonal administration ; (6.) he must be free from legal
judgment and pursuit; (7.) he must provide for the mainte-
nance of all such members of his family to be left in the com-
mune, as from either youth or age might become a burden to
his village ; (8.) he must make good any arrears of rent which
may be due on his allotment to the lord; (9.) he must pro-
duce either a resolution passed by some other commune, ad-
mitting him as a member, or a certificate, properly signed,
that he has bought the freehold of a plot of land, equal to tAVO
allotments, not above ten miles distant from the commune
named. These rules — which are provisional only — are found
to tie a peasant with enduring strictness to his fields.

The question, whether the serf is so far cured of his Tartar
habit that he can live a settled life without being bound to
his patch of ground, is still unasked. The answer to that
question must come with time, province by province and
town by town. Nature is slow, and habit is a growth. Re-
form must wait on nature, and observe her laws.

As in all such grand reforms, the parties most affected by_Oie
change were much dissatisfied aF^str The serf had'got too -
much ; thelords had kejliftob much. In many provinces Che
peasants refused to hear the imperial rescript read in church.
They said the priest was keeping them in tHe'dark ; for, I'llled
by the nobles, and playing a false part against the Eniperor,

Emancipation. 271

he was holding back the real letters of liberation, and read-
ing them papers forged by their lords. Fanatics and im-
postors took advantage of their discontent to excite sedition,
and these fanatics and impostors met with some success in
provinces occupied by the Poles and Malo-Russ.

Two of these risings were important. At the village of
Bezdna, province of Kazan, one Anton Petrof announced
himself as a prophet of God and. an ambassador from the
Tsar. He told the peasants that they were now free men,
and that their good Emperor had given them all the land.
Four thousand rustics followed him about; and when Gen-
eral Count Apraxine, overtaking the mob and calling iipon
them to give up their leader, and disperse under pain of be-
ing instantly shot down, the poor fellows cried, " We shall
not give him up ; we are all for the Tsar." Apraxine gave
the word to fire ; a hundred men dropped down with bullets
in their bodies — fifty-one dead, the others badly hurt. In
horror of this butchery, the people cried, " You are firing into
Alexander Nicolaivitch himself !" Petrof was taken, tried by
court-martial, and shot in the presence of his stupefied friends,
who could not understand that a soldier was doing his duty
to the crown by firing into masses of unarmed men.

A more singular and serious rising of serfs took place in
the rich province of Penza, where a strange personage pro-
claimed himself the Grand Duke Constantino, brother of
Nicolas, once a captive. Affecting radical opinions, the
" grand duke " raised a red flag, collected bands of peasants,
and alarmed the country far and near. A body of soldiers,
sent against them by General Dreniakine, were received with
clubs and stones, and forced to run away. Dreniakine march-
ed against the rebels, and in a smart action he dispersed them
through the steppe, after killing eight and seriously maiming
twenty-six. The " grand duke " was suffered to get away.
The country was much excited by the rising, and on Easter
Sunday General Dreniakine telegraphed to St. Petersburg his
duty to the minister, and asked for power to punish the re-
volters by martial law. The minister sent him orders to act
according to his judgment ; and he began to flog and shoot
the villagers until order was restored within the limits of his
command. The " grand duke " Avas denounced as one Egort-

272 Free Russia.

sof, a Milk-Drinker; and Dreniakine soon afterwards spread
a report that lie was dead.

The agitation was not stilled nntil the Emperor himself ap-
peared on the scene. On his way to Yalta he convoked a
meeting of elders, to w^hom he addressed a few wise and
solacing words : " I have given you all the liberties defined
by the statutes ; I have given you no liberties save those de-
fined by the statutes." It was the very first time these peas-
ants had heard of their Emperor's will being limited by law.

CHAPTER LII.

PEEEDOM.

" What were the first effects of emancipation in your prov-
ince ?" I ask a lady.

" Rather droll," replies the Princess B. " In the morning,
the poor fellows could not beheve their senses ; in the after-
noon, they got tipsy ; next day, they wanted to be married."

"Doubt — drunkenness — matrimony! Yes, it Avas rather
droll."

" You see, a serf was not suffered to drink whisky and
make love as he pleased. It was a wild outburst of liberty ;
and perhaps the two things brought their own punishments?"

" Not the marrying, surely ?"

" Ha ! who knows^?"

The upper ranks are much divided in opinion as to the true
results of emancipation. If the liberal circles of the Winter
Palace look on things in the rosiest light, the two extreme
parties which stand aside as chorus and critics — the Whites
and Reds, Obstructives and Socialists — regard them from two
opposite points of view, as in the last degree unsound, unsafe.

When a Russian takes upon himself the office of critic, he
is always gloomy, Oriental, and prophetic. He turns his face
to the darker side of things ; he groans in spirit, and picks up
Avords of woe. If he has to deal as critic with the sins of his
own time and country, he prepares his tongue to denounce
and his soul to curse ; and his self-examination, whether in

Freedom, 273

resiDect to liis private vices or his public failings, is conducted
in a dark, reproachful, and inquisitorial spirit.

In one house you fall among the Whites — a charming set
of men to meet in drawing-room or club; urbane, accom-
plished, profligate ; owners who never saw their serfs, land-
lords who never lived on their estates ; fine fellows — whether
young or old — who spent their lives in roving from St. Pe-
tersburg to Paris, and were known by sight in every gaming-
house, in every theatre, from the Neva to the Seine. These
men will tell you, with an exquisite smile, that Russia has
come to the dogs. " Free labor !" they exclaim with scorn,
" the country is sinking under these free institutions year by
year — sinking in morals, sinking in production, sinking in
political strength. A peasant works less, drinks more than
ever. While he was a serf he could be flogged into industiy,
if not into sobriety. Now he is master, he will please him-
self ; and his pleasure is to dawdle in the dram-shop and to
slumber on the stove. Not only is he going down himself,
but he is pulling every one else down in his wake. The
burgher is worse off ; the merchant finds nothing to buy and
sell. Less land is under plough and spade ; the quantity of
corn, oats, barley, and maize produced is less than in the
good old times. Russia is poorer than she was, financially
and physically. Famines have become more frequent ; arson
is increasing; while the crimes of burglary and murder are
keeping pace with the strides of fire and famine. As rich
and poor, we are more divided than we were as lords and
serfs. The rich used to care for the poor, and the poorer
classes lived on the waste of rich men's boards. They had an
influence on each other, and always for their mutual good.
In this new scheme we are strangers when we are not rivals,
competitors when we are not foes. A rustic cares for neither
lord nor priest. A landlord who desires to live on his estate
must bow and smile, must bend and cringe, in order to keep
his own. The rustics rob his farm, they net his lake, they
beat his bailiff, they insult his wife. His time is wasted in
complaining — now to the police, now to the magistrate, noAV
again to the cantonal chief. All classes are at strife, and the
seeds of revolution are broadly sown."

In a second house you fall among the Reds — a far more

18

274 Fkee Kussia.

dashing ami excited set ; many of whona have also spent
much time in passing from St. Petersburg to Paris, thougli
not with the hope of becoming known to croupiers and ballet-
girls ; men with pallid brov/s and sparkling eyes, who make
a science of their social whims, and treat the emancipating
acts as so many paths to that republic of rustics which they
desire to see. " These circulars, reports, and edicts were nec-
essary," they allege, "in order to open men's eyes to the
tragic facts. Our miseries were hidden ; our princes were so
rich, our palaces so splendid, and our troops so numerous,
that the world — and even we ourselves — believed the impe-
rial government strong enough to march in any direction, to
strike down every foe. The Tsar was so great that no one
thought of his serfs ; the sun was so brilliant that you could
not see the motes. But now that reign of deceit is gone for-
ever, and our wretchedness is exposed to every eye. You
say we are free, and prospering in our freedom ; but the facts
are otherwise ; we are neither free nor prosperous. The act
of emancipation was a snare. Men fancied they were going
to be freed from their lords ; but when the day of deliver-
ance came they found themselves taken from a bad master
and delivered to a worse. A man who was once a serf be-
came a slave. He had belonged to a neighbor, often to a
friend, and now he became a property of the crown. Branded
yviih the Black Eagle, he was fastened to the soil by a strong-
er chain. A false civilization seized him, held him in her
embrace, and made him pass into the fire. What has that
civilization done for him ? Starved him ; stripped him ;
mined him. Go into our cities. Look at our burghers;
watch how they lie and cheat ; hear how they bear false wit-
ness; note how they buy with one yard, sell with another
yard. Go into our communes. Mark the dull eye and the
stupid face of the village lout, who lives alone, like a wild
beast, far from his fellows — part of the forest, as a log of
wood is part of the forest. Observe how he drinks and
shuffles ; how he says his prayers, and shirks his duty, and
begets his kind, with hardly more thought in his head than a
wolf and a bear. This state of things must be swept away.
The poor man is the victim of all tyrants, all impostors ; the
minister cheats him of his freedom, and the landlord of his

Freedom. 275

field ; but the hour of revolution is drawing nigh ; and people
will greet that coming hour with their rallying cry — More
liberty and more land !"

A stranger listening to every one, looking into every thing,
will see that on the fringe of actual fact there are aj^pear-
ances which might seem to justify, according to the point of
view, these opposite and extreme opinions ; yet, on massing
and balancing his observations of the country as a whole, a
stranger must perceive that under emancipation the peasant
is better dressed, better lodged, and better fed ; that his wife
is healthier, his children cleaner, his homestead tidier ; that he
and his belongings are improved by the gift which changed
him from a chattel into a man.

A peasant sj)ends much money, it is true, in drams ; but
he spends yet more in clothing for his wife. He builds his
cabin of better wood, and in the eastern provinces, if not in
all, you find improvements in the walls and roof. He paints
the logs, and fills up cracks Avith plaster, where he formerly
left them bare and stufEed with moss. He sends his boys to
school, and goes himself more frequently to church, li he
exports less corn and fur to other countries, it is because, be-
ing richer, he can now afford to eat white bread and wear a
cat-skin cap.

The burgher class and the merchant class have been equally
benefited by the change. A good many peasants have become
burghers, and a good many burghers merchants. All the do-
mestic and useful trades have been quickened into life. More
shoes are worn, more carts are wanted, more cabins are built.
Hats, coats, and cloaks are in higher demand ; the bakeries
and breweries find more to do ; the teacher gets more pupils,
and the banker has more customers on his books.

This movement runs along the line ; for in the wake of
emancipation every other liberty and right is following fast.
Five years ago (1864), the Emperor called into existence two
local parliaments in every province ; a district assembly and
a provincial assembly : in which every class, from prince to
peasant, was to have his voice. The district assembly is
elected l>y classes ; nobles, clergy, merchants, husbandmen ;
each apart, and free ; the provincial assembly consists of dele-
gates from the several district assemblies. The district as-

276 Free Russia.

sembly settles all questions as to roads and bridges ; the
provincial assembly looks to building jDrisons, draining pools,
damming rivers, and the like. The peasant interest is strong
in the district assembly, the landlord interest in the provincial
assembly ; and they are equally useful as schools of freedom,
eloquence, and public spirit. On these local boards, the clev-
erest men in every province are being trained for civic, and,
if need be, parliamentary life.

On every side, an observer notes with pleasure a tendency
of the villagers to move upon the towns and enter into the
higher activities of civic life. This tendency is carrying them
back beyond the Tartar times into the better days of Novgo-
rod and Pskoff.

In his commune, a peasant may hope to pass through the
dreary existence led by his mule and ox ; his thoughts given
up to his cabbage-soup, his buckwheat porridge, his loaf of
black bread, and his darling dram. If he acquires in his vil-
lage some patriarchal virtues — love of home, respect for age,
delight in tales and songs, and preference for oral over written
law — he also learns, without knowing why, to think and feel
like a Bedouin in his tent, and a Kirghiz on his steppe. A
rustic is nearly always humming old tunes. Whether you see
him felling his pine, unloading his team, or sitting at his door,
he is nearly always singing the same old dirge of love or war.
When he breaks into a brisker stave, it is always into a song
of revenge and hate. Bandits are his heroes; and the staid
young fellow who dares not whisper to his partner in a dance,
will roar out such a riotous squall :

" I'll toil in the fields no more!

For what can I gain by the spade ?
My hands are empty, my heart is sore ;
A knife ! my friend's in the forest glade ! "

Another youth may sing :

"I'll rob the merchant at his stall,
I'll slay the noble in his hall ;
With girls and whisky I'll have my fling.
And the world will honor me like a king."

One of the most popular of these robber songs has a chorus
runnincc thus, addressed in menace to the noble and the rich :

FiiEEDOii. 277

" We have come to drink your wine,
AVe have come to steal your gold,
AVe have come to kiss your wives !

Ha! ha!"

This reckless sense of right and wrong is due to that serf-
age under which the peasants groaned for two hundred and
sixty years. Serfage made men indifferent to life and death.
The crimes of serfage have scarcely any parallel, except among
savage tribes ; and the liberty which some of the freed peas-
ants enjoyed the most was the liberty of revenge.

Ivan Gorski was living in Tamboff, in very close friendship
with a family of seven persons, when he conceived a grudge
against them on some unknown ground, obtained a gun, and
asked his friends to let him practice firing in their yard. They
let him put up his target, and blaze away till he became a very
fair shot, and people got used to the noise of his gun. When
these two points were gained, he took off every member of
the house. He could not tell the reason of his crime.

Daria Sokolof was employed as nurse in a family, and when
the child grew up went back to her village, parting from her
master and mistress on the best of terms. Some years passed
by. On going into the town to sell her fruit and herbs, and
finding a bad market, she went to her old home and asked for
a lodging for the night. Her master was ill, and her mistress
put her to bed. At two in the morning she got up, seized
an Italian iron, crept to her master's room, and beat his
brains out ; then to her mistress's room, and killed her also.
Afterwards she Avent into the servant's room, and murdered
her; into the boy's room, and murdered him. A pet dog
lay on the lad's coverlet, and she smashed its skull. She
took a little money — not much ; went home, and slept till
daylight. Xo one suspected her, for no living creature knew
she had been to the house. Twelve months elapsed before a
clue was found ; but as no witness of the crime Avas left, she
could only be condemned to a dozen years in the Siberian
mines. Her case excited much remark, and persons are even
now petitioning the ministry of justice to let her off !

It is only by living in a wider field, by acting for himself,
by gaining a higher knowledge of men and things, that the
peasant can escape from the bad traditions and morbid senti-

278 Free Russia.

monts of Lis former life. It will be an immense advantage
for the empire of villages to become, as other nations are, an
empire of both villages and towns.

CHAPTER LIII.

TSEK AND ARTEL,

The obstacles which lie in the way of a peasant wishing to
become a townsman are very great. After he has freed him-
self from his obligations to the commune and the crovv'n, and
arrived at the gates of Moscow, with his papers in perfect
order, how is a rustic to live in that great city ? By getting
work. That would be the only trouble of a French paysan or
an English plough-boy. In Russia it is different. The towns
are not open and unvralled, so that men may come and go as
they list. They are strongholds ; held, in each case, by an
army, in the ranks of Avhich every man has his appointed
place.

No man — not of noble birth — can live the burgher life in
Moscow, save by gaining a place in one of the recognized
ordei's of society — in a tsek, a guild, or a chin.

Atsek is an association^f craftsmen and petty traders, such
as the tailoring tsek, the cooking tsek, and the peddling tsek ;
the members of which pay a small sum of money, elect their
own elders, and manage their own affairs. The elder of a
tsek gives to each member a printed form, which must be
countersigned by the police not less than once a year. A
guild is a higher kind of tsek, the members of which pay a tax
to the state for the privilege of buying and selling, and for
immunity from serving in the ranks. A chin is a grade in
the jjublic service, parted somewhat sharply into fourteen
stages — from that of a certified collegian up to that of an act-
ing privy-councillor. A peasant might enter a guild if he
could pay the tax ; but the impost is heavy, even for the low-
est guild ; and a man who comes into Moscow in search of
work must seek a place in some cheap and humble tsek. He
need not follow the calling of his tsek — a clerk may belong to

TsEK AND Artel. 279

a shoemaker's tsek, and a gentleman's servant to a hawker's
tsek. But in one or other of these societies a peasant must
get his name inscribed and his papers signed, under penaUy
of being seized by the police and hustled into the ranks.

Every year he must go in person to the Office of Addresses,
a vast establishment on~the Tverskpr Boulevard, \vhere"the
name, residence, and occupation of every man and woman
living in this great city is entered on the public books. At
this Office of Addresses he has to leave his regular papers,
taking a receipt which serves him as a passport for a week;
in the mean while the jjolice examine his papers, verify the
elder's signature, and mark them afresh with an official stamp.
Every time he changes his lodging he must go in person to
the Office of Addresses and record the change. A tax of
three or four shillings a year is levied on his papers by the
police, half of which money goes to the crown and half to the
provincial hospitals. In case of poverty and sickness, his in-
scription in a tsek entitles a man to be received into a govern-
ment hospital should there be room for him in any of the wards.

To lose his papers is a calamity for the rustic hardly less
serious than to losers leg. VV ithout his papers ITeTs an out-
law at the mercy of every one who hates him. He must go
back at once to his village ; if he has been lucky enough to
get his name on the books of a tsek, he must find the elder,
prove his loss, procure fresh evidence of his identity, and get
this evidence countersigned by the police. Yet when a rus-
tic comes to Moscow nothing is more likely than that his
passport will be stolen. In China-town there is a rag fair,
called the Hustling Mai'ket, where cheap-jacks sell every sort
of ware — old sheep-skins, rusty locks and keys, felt boots
(third wear), and span-new saints in brass and tin. This mar-
ket is a hiring-place for servants ; and lads who have no friends
in Moscow flock to this market in search of work. A fellow
walks up to the rustic with a town-bred air : " You Avant a
place ? Very well ; let me see your passport." Taking his
papers from his boot — a peasant always puts his purse and
papers in his boot — he offers them gladly to the man, who
dodges through the crowd in a moment, while the rustic is
gaping at him with open mouth. A thief knows where he
can sell these papers, just as he could sell a stolen watch..

280 Free Kussia.

Having got his name inscribed in a tsek, his passport
signed by his elder and countersigned by the police, the peas-
ant, now become a burglier, looks about him for an artel,
which, if he have money enough, he proceeds to join.

An artel is an association of workmen following the same
craft, and organized on certain lines, with the principles of
which they are made familiar in their village life. An artel
is a commune carried from the country into the town. The
members of an artel join together for their mutual benefit
and insurance. They elect an elder, and confide to him the
management of their concerns. They agree to work in com-
mon at their craft, to have no private interests, to throw their
earnings into a single fund, and, after paying the very light
cost of their association, to divide the sum total into equal
shares. In practical effect, the artel is a finer form of com-
munism than the commune itself. In the village commune
they only divide the land ; in the city artel they divide the
produce.

The origin of artels is involved in mist. Some writers of
the Panslavonic school profess to find traces of such an asso-
ciation in the tenth century ; but the only proof adduced is
the existence of a rule making towns and villages responsible,
in cases of murder, for the fines inflicted on the criminal — a
rule which these writers would find in the Frankish, Saxon,
and other codes. The safer view appears to be, that the ar-
tel came from Asia. No one knows the origin of this term
artel — it seems to be a Tartar word, and it is nowhere found
in use until the reign of those tartarized Grand Dukes of
Moscow, Ivan the Third and Ivan the Fourth. In fact, the
artel seems to have been planted in Russia with the commune
and the serf.

The first artel of which we have any notice was a gang of
thieves, who roamed about tlie country taking Avhat they
liked with a rude hand — inviting themselves to weddings and
merrj^-makings, where they not only ate and drank as they
pleased, but carried away the wine, the victuals, and the jDlate.
These freebooters elected a chief, whom they called their at-
aman. They were bound to stand by each other in weal and
woe. No rogue could go where he pleased — no thief could
plunder on his personal account. The spoil was thrown into

TsEK AND Artel. 281

a common lieap, from which every member of the artel got
an equal share.

These bandit artels must have been strong and prosperous,
since the principle of their association passed with little or no
change into ordinary city life and trade. The burghers kept
the word artel ; they translated ataman into elder (starost) ;
and in every minor detail they copied their original, rule by
rule. These early artels had very few articles of association ;
and the principal were : that the members formed one body,
bound to stand by each other ; that they were to be governed
by a chief, elected by general suffrage ; that e^'ery man was
appointed to his post by the artel ; that a member could not
refuse to do the thing required of him ; that no one should
be suffered to drink, swear, game, and quarrel ; that every
one should bear himself towards his comrade like a brother ;
that no present should be received, unless it were shared by
each ; that a member could not name a man to serve in his
stead, except with the consent of all. In after times these
simple rules were supplemented by provisions for restoring
to the member's heirs the value of his rights in the common
fund. In case of death, these additional rules provided that
the subscriber's share should go to his son, if he had a son;
if not, to his next of kin, as any other property would descend.
So far the estate was held to be a joint concern as regards
the question of use, and a series of personal properties as re-
gards the actual ownershij). All these city artels took the
motto of " Honesty and truth."

An artel, then, was, in its origin, no other than an associa-
tion of craftsmen for their mutual support against the mis-
eries of city life, just as the commune was an association of
laborers for their mutual support against the miseries of
country life. Each sprang, in its turn, from a sense of the
weakness of individual men in struggling with the hard ne-
cessities of time and place. One body sought protection in
numbers and mutual help against occasional lack of employ-
ment ; the other against occasional attacks from wolvt?s and
bears, and against the annual floods of rain and drifts of
snow. An artel was a republic like a commune ; with a right
of meeting, a right of election, a right of fine and punish-
ment. No one interfered with the members, save in a gen-

282 Free Eussia.

cral way. They made their own rules, obeyed their own
chiefs, and Avere in every sense a state within the state. Yet
these societies Hved and throve, because they proved, on trial,
to be as beneficial to the upper as they were to the lower
class ; an artel offering advantages to employers of labor
like those offered by a commune to the ministers of finance
and Avar.

If an English banker Avants a clerk, he must go into the
open market and find a servant, whom he has to hire on the
strength of his character as certified from his latest place.
He takes him on trial, subject to the chance of his proving
an honest man. If a Russian banker Avants a clerk, he sends
for the elder of an artel, looks at his list, and hires his servant
from the society, in that society's name. He seeks no char-
acter, takes no guaranty. The artel is responsible for the
clerk, and the banker trusts him in perfect confidence to the
full extent of the artel fund. If the clerk should prove to be
a rogue — a thing Avhich sometimes happens — the banker calls
in the elder, certifies the fact, and gets his money paid back
at once.

These things may happen, yet they are not common. Pet-
ty thieving is the vice of every Eastern race, and Russians of
the lower class are not exceptions to the rule ; yet, in the ar-
tels, it is certain that this tendency to pick and steal is great-
ly curbed, if not Avholly suppressed. " Honesty and truth,"
from being a phrase on the tongue, may come at length to be
a habit of the mind, A decent life is strenuously enjoined,
and no member is alloAved to drink and game ; thus many of
the vices Avhich lead to theft are held in check by the public
opinion of his circle ; yet the temptation sometimes groAvs too
strong, and a confidential clerk decamps with his employer's
box. Another merit of these artels then comes out,

A robbery has taken place in the bank, a clerk is missing,
and the banker feels assured that the money and the man are
gone together, Notice is sent to the police ; but Moscoav is
a very big city ; and Rcbrof, clever as he may be in catching
thieves, has no instant means of foUoAving a man Avho has just
committed in a bank parlor his virgin crime. But the elder
knoAvs his man, and the members, Avho Avill have to suffer for
his fault, are Avell acquainted Avith his haunts. Setting their

TsEK AND Artel. 283

eyes and tongues at Avork, tliey follow bim with the energy
of a pack of wolves on a trail of blood, never slackening in
their race until they bunt bim down and yield bim up to trial,
judgment, and the mines.

Bankers like Baron Stieglitz, of St. Petersburg, merchants
like Mazourin and Alexief, in Moscow, have artels of their
own, founded in the first instance for their own work-people.
On entering an artel, a man pays a considerable sum of mon-
ey— the average is a thousand rubles, one hundred and fifty
pounds — though he need not always pay the whole sum down
at once. That payment is the good-will ; what is called the
buying in. He goes to work Avherever the artel may appoint
bim. lie gets no separate wages ; for the payment is made
to the elder for one and all. So far this is share and share
alike. But then the old rule about receiving presents has
been much relaxed of late ; and a good servant often receives
from bis master more than he receives as his share from the
general fund. This innovation, it is true, destroys the old
character of the artel as a society for the mutual assurance of
strong and weak ; but in the progress of free thought and ac-
tion it is a revolution not to be withstood, and hardly to be
gainsaid.

One day, when dining Avith a Swede, a banker in St. Peters-
burg, I was struck by the quick eyes and ready hands of my
host's butler, and, on my dropping a word in his praise, my
host broke out, " Ha, that fellow is a golden man ; he is ray
butler, valet, clerk, cashier, and master of the household — all
in one."

"Is be a peasant?"

" Yes ; a peasant from the South. I get him for nothing —
for the price of a common lout."

" He comes to you from an artel ?"

" Yes, he and some dozen more ; he is worth the other
twelve."

" You pay the same wage for each and all ?"

" To the artel, so ; but, hist ! We make up for extra care
and service by a thumping New-Year's gift."

" Then the artel is beginning to fail of its original jiurpose
• — that of securing to the weak, the idle, and the stui)id men
as high a wage as it gave to the strong, the enter2:)rising, and
the able men ?"

284 Free Eussia.

" Can you suppose that clever and pushing fellows will
work like horses, all for nothing, now that they are free ? A
serf might do so ; he lived in terror of the stick ; he had no
notion of his rights ; and he had woi'ked for others all his
life. An artel is a useful thing, and no one (least of all a for-
eign banker) wishes to see the institution fail ; but it must
go with the times. If it can not find the means of drawing
the best men into it by paying them fairly for Avhat they do,
it will pass away."

An artel is a vast convenience to the foreign masters, Avhat-
ever it may be to the native men.

CHAPTER LIV.

MASTERS AND MEN.

Not in one town, in one province only, but in every town,
■we find^two nations living in presence of each other; just as
we find them in Finland and Livonia; an upper race and a
lower ; a foreign race and a native ; and in nearly all these
towns and provinces the foreign race are the masters, the na-
tive race their men.

On the open plains and in the forest lands this division
into masters and men is not so strongly marked as in the
towns. Here and there we find a stranger in possession of
the soil ; but the rule is not so ; and while the towns may be
said to belong in a rough way to the German, the country, as
a whole, is the property of the Russ. The people may be
parted into these two classes ; not in commercial things only,
but in professional study and in official life. The trade, the
art, the science, and the power of Russia have all been lodged
by law in the stranger's hand — the Russ being made an un-
derling, even when he was not made a serf ; and it is only in
our own time — since the close of the Crimean war — that the
crown has come, as it were, to the help of nature in recover-
ing Russia for the Russ.

The dynasty is foreign. The fact is too common to excite
remark ; the first and most liberal countries in the world, so

Masters and Men. 285

far as they have kings at all, being governed by princes of
alien blood. In London the dynasty is Hanoverian ; in Ber-
lin it is Swabian ; in Paris it is Corsican ; in Vienna it is
Swiss ; in Florence it is Savoyard ; in Copenhagen it is Hol-
slein ; in Stockholm it is French ; in Brussels it is Cobourg ;
at the Hague it is Rhenish ; in Lisbon it is Kohary ; in Ath-
ens it is Danish ; in Rio it is Portuguese. No bad moral
^vould be, therefore, drawn from the fact of a Gottorp reigning
on the Neva and the Moskva, were it not a fact that the Rus-
sian peasant had some reason to regard his prince as being
not less foreign in spirit than he was in blood. The two
princes who are best known to him — Ivan the Terrible and
Peter the Great — announced, in season and out of season, that
they were not Russ. " Take care of the weight," said Ivan to
an English artist, giving him some bars of gold to be worked
into plate, " for the Russians are all thieves." The artist
smiled. " Why are you laughing ?" asked the Tsar. " I was
thinking that, when you called the Russians thieves, your
Majesty forgot that you were Russ yourself." "Pooh !" re-
plied the Tsar, " I am a German, not a Russ." Peter was loud
in his scorn of every thing Muscovite. He spoke the German
tongue ; he wore the German garb. He shaved his beard and
trimmed his hair in the German style. He built a German
city, which he made his capital and his home, and he called
that city by a German name. He loved to smoke his German
pipe, and to quicken his brain with German beer. To him
the new empire which he meant to found was a German em-
pire, with ports like Hamburg, cities like Frankfort and Ber-
lin ; and he thought little more of his faithful Russ than as a
horde of savages whom it had become his duty to improve
into the likeness of Dutch and German boors.

To the imperial mind, itself foreign, the stranger has always
been a type of order, peace, and progress ; while the native has
been a type of waste, disorder, and stagnation. Hence favors
without end have been heaped on Germans by the reigning
house, while Russians have been left to feel the presence of
their Government chiefly in the tax-collector and the sergeant
of police. This difference has become a subject for proverbs
and jokes. When the Emperor asked a man who had done
him service how he would like to be remembered in return.

286 Free Eussia.

he said : " If your Majesty will only make me a German, every
tiling else Avill come in time."

Ministers, ambassadors, chamberlains, have almost all been
German ; and when a Russian has been employed in a great
command, it has been rather in war than in the more delicate
affairs of state. The German, as a rule, is better taught and
trained than the Russian ; knowing arts and sciences, to which
the Russian is supposed to be a stranger, now and forever, as
if learning were a thing beyond his reach. Peter made a law
by which certain arts and crafts were to remain forever in
German hands. A Russian could not be a druggist, lest he
should poison his neighbor; nor a chimney-sweep, lest he
should set his shed on fire.

Such laws have been repealed by edicts ; yet many remain
in force, in virtue of a wider power than that of minister and
j)rince. No Russian would take his dose of salts, his camo-
mile i^ill, from the hands of his brother Russ, He has no con-
fidence in native skill and care. A Russ may be a good phy-
sician, being quick, alert, and sympathetic ; yet no amount of
training seems to fit him for the delicate office of mixing
drugs. lie likes to lash out, and can not curb his fury to
the minute accuracy of an eye-glass and a pair of scales. A
few grains, moi'e or less, in a potion are to him nothing at
all. In Moscow, where the Panslavonic hope is strong, I
heard of more than one case in which the desire to deal at a
native shop had sent the patriot to an untimely grave.

" You can not teach a Russian girl," said a lady, who was
speaking to me about her servants. " That girl, now, is a
good sort of creature in her way; she never tires of work,
never utters a complaint; she goes to mass on Saints'-days
and Sundays ; and she would rather die of hunger than taste
eggs and milk in Lent. But I can not persuade her to wash
a sheet, to sweep a room, and to rock a cradle in my English
way. If I show her how to do it, she says, with a pensive
look, that her people do things thus and thus ; and if I insist
on having my own way in my own house, she will submit to
force under a sort of protest, and will then run home to tell
her parents and her pope that her English lady is jDOSsessed
by an evil spirit."

The strangers who hold so many offices of trust in the

Masters and Men. 287

country, and who form its intellectual aristocracy, are not con-
sidered in Berlin as of pure Germanic stock. They come
from the Baltic provinces — from Livonia and Lithuania ; but
they trace their houses, not to the Letts and Wends of those
regions, but to the old Teutonic knights. There can be no
mistake about their energy and power.

Long before the days of Peter the Great they had a foot-
ing in the land ; under Peter they became its masters ; and
ever since his reign they have been striving to subdue and
civilize the people as their ancestors in Ost and West Preus-
sen civilized the ancient Letts and Finns.

No love is lost between these strangers and natives, masters
and men. The two races have nothing in common; neither
blood, nor speech, nor faith. They differ like West and East.
A German cuts his hair short, and trims his beard and mus-
tache. He wears a hat and shoes, and wraps his limbs in soft,
warm cloth. He strij^s himself at night, and prefers to sleep
iu a bed to frying his body on a stove. He washes himself
once a day. He never drinks whisky, and he loves sour-krout.
A German believes in science, a Russian believes in fate. One
looks for his guide to experience, while the other is turning
to his invisible powers. If a German child falls sick, his fa-
ther sends for a doctor ; if a Rixssian child falls sick, his fa-
ther kneels to his saint.

In the North country, Avhere Avolves abound, a foreigner
brings in his lambs at night ; but the native saj'S, a lamb is
either born to be devoured by wolves or not, and any attempt
to cross his fate is flying in the face of heaven. A German
is a man of ideas and methods. He believes in details. From
his wide experience of the world he knows that one man can
make carts, while a second can write poems, and a third can
drill troops. He loves to see things in order, and his business
going on with the smoothness of a machine. He rises early,
and goes to bed late. With a pipe in his mouth, a glass of
beer at his side, a pair of spectacles on his nose, he can toil for
sixteen hours a day, nor fancy that the labor is beyond his
strength. He seldom faints at his desk, and he never forgets
the respect which may be due to his chief. In offices of trust
he is the soul of probity and intelligence. It is a rare thing,
even in Russia, for a German to be bought with money ; and

288 Free Kussia.

his own strict dealing makes liim hard witli the wretch whom
he has reason to suspect of yielding to a bribe. In the higher
reaches of character he is still more of a puzzle to his men.
With all his love of order and routine, he is a dreamer and an
idealist; and on the moral side of his nature he is capable of
a tenderness, a chivalry, an enthusiasm, of which the Russian
finds no traces in himself.

A Russ, on the other side, is a man of facts and of illusions ;
but his facts are in the region of his ideas, while his illusions
rest in the region of his habits. It has been said, in irony, of
course, that a Russian never dreams— except when he is wide
awake !

Let us go into a Russian work-shop and a German work-
shop ; two flax-mills, say, at one of the great river towns.

In the first we find the master and his men of one race,
with habits of life and thought essentially the same. Tliey
dine at the same table, eat the same kind of food. They wear
the same long hair and beards, and dress in the same caftan
and boots ; they play the same games of draughts and whist ;
they drink the same whisky and quass ; they kneel at the same
village shrine ; they kiss the same cross ; and they confess their
sins to a common priest. If one gets tipsy on Sunday night,
the other is likely to have a fellow-feeling for his fault. If
the master strikes the man, it is an affair between the two.
The man either bears the blow with patience or returns it
with the nearest cudgel. Of this family quarrel the magistrate
never hears.

In the second we find a more perfect industrial order, and
a master with a shaven chin. This master, though he may be
kind and just, is foreign in custom and severe in drill. To
him his craft is first and his workmen next. He insists on
regular hours, on work that knows no pause. He keeps the
men to their tasks ; allows no Monday loss on account of Sun-
day drink; and sets his face against the singing of those
brigand songs in which the Russian delights to spend his
time. If his men are absent, he stops their Avages — not wish-
ing them to make up by night for what they waste by day.
In case of need, he hauls them up before the nearest judge.

The races stand apart. A hundred German colonies exist
on Russian soil ; old colonies, new colonies, farming colonies.

The Bible. 289

religious colonies. Every thing about tliese foreign villages
is clean and bright. The roads are well kept, the cabins well
built, the gardens well trimmed. The carts are better made,
the teams are better groomed, the haz'vests are better housed
than among the natives; yet no perceptible influence flows
from the German colony into tlie Russian commune ; and a
hamlet lying a league from such a settlement as Strelna or
Sarepta is not unlikely to be worse for the example of its
smiling face.

The natives see their master in an odious light. They look
on his clean face as that of a girl, and exj)ress the utmost con-
tempt for his pipe of tobacco, his pair of spectacles, and his
pot of beer. Whisky, they say, is the drink for men. AVorse
than all else, they regard him as a heretic, to whom Heaven
may have given (as Arabs say) the power of the stick, but
who is not the less disowned by the Church and cast out
from God.

CHAPTER LV.

THE BIBLE.

A LEARNED father of the ancient rite made some remarks
to me on the Bible in Russia, which live in my mind as parts
of the picture of this great country.

1 knew that our Bible Society liuve a liraiich in Petersburg,
and that copies of the Xcw Testament raid tlie Psalms have
been scattered, through their agency, from the White Sea to
the Black ; but, being well aware that the right to found that
branch of our Society in Russia was originally urged by men
of the Avorld in London upon men of the same class in St. Pe-
tersburg, and that the ministers of Alexander the First gave
their consent in a time of war, when they wanted English
help in men and money against the French, I supposed that
the pui;]20ses in view had been political, andthat this heaven-
ly seed was cast into ttngrateful soil. 1 had no conception of
the cood Avhich 01

niany^years.

" The^ Scriptures which came to us from England," said

19

290 Free Eussia.

this priest, "have been themainstay, not of our religion onl}^,
but of our national life."

" Tlien they have been much read ?"

*' In thousands, in ten thousands of pious homes. _The
true Russian likes his Bible — yes, even better than his dram
—for tiie Bible tells him of a world beyond his daily field of
toil, a world of angels and of spirits, in which lie believes
Avith a hearer faith than he puts in the wood and water about
his feet. In every second house of Gi-eat Russia — tlie true,
old Russia, in which jwespeaj^ the same language and have
the same God — you will find a copy of the Bible, and men
who have the promise in their liearts."

In my journey through the country I find this true, thoi;gh
not so much in the letter as in llie .si)irit. Except_in_Ne\v
England and in Scotland, no people in the world, so far as
they can read at all, are greater Bible-readers than the Rus-
sians.

7T[n thinking of Russia we forget the time when she was
free, even as she is now again growing free, and take scant
heed of the fact that she possessed a ])0})iilar version of
Scripture, used in all her churches and chapels;, long Ije'f ore
such a treasure was obtained by England, Germany, and
France.

" Love for the Bible and love for Russia," said the priest,
" go with us hand in hand, as the Tsar in his palace and the
monk in his convent know. A patriotic government gives
us the Bible, a monastic government takes it away." """

" What do you mean by a patriotic government and a mo-
nastic government, when speaking of the Bible ?"

"By a patriotic government, that of Alexander the First
and Alexander the Second ; by a monastic govenn)K'nt7^iat
of Nicolas. The first Alexander gave us the Bible ; Nicolas
took it_away ; the second Alexander gave it us again. The
first Alexander was a prince of gentle ways and simple
thoughts — a mystic, as men of worldly training call a man
who lives with God. Like all true Russiiins, he had a deep
and quick perce^Uon_of_the^jirese.nce of things ..una^en. Tn
the^rnidst of his earthly troubles — and they were great — he
turrTed into himself. He was a Biblejiaader. In the Holy
Word he found that peace which the world could neither

The Bible. 291

give nor take away ; and what_he_found for himself he set
his heart on sharing Avith his children everywhere. Consult-
ing Prince (jfolitsin, then liis minister of public worshij), he
found that pious and noble man — Golitsin was a Russian — of
his mind. They read the Book together7and, seeing that it
was good for them, they sent for Stanislaus, archbishop of
Mohiloff, and asked hini M'hy people should not read the Bi-
ble, each man for himself, and in his native tongue ? Up to
that time our sacred books were printed only in Bulgaric ; a
Slavonic si^eech Avhich peoj^le used to understand ; but M'hich
is now an unknown dialect, even to the popes who drone it
every day from the altar steps. Two English doctors — the
good Patterson and the good Pinkerton — brought us the
New Testament, jarinted in the Russian tongue ; and, by help
of the Tsar and his council, scattered the copies into every
province and every town, from the frontiers of Poland to
those of China. I am an old man now ; but_ my veins still
throb with the fervor of that day when we first received, in
our native speech, the word that was to bring us eternal life.
The books were instantly bought up and read ; friends lent
them to each other ; and family meetings were held, in which
the Promise was read aloud. The poi:)es explained the text ;
the elders gave out chapter and verse. Even in parties which
met to drink whisky and play cards, some neighbor would
produce his Bible, when the company gave up their games to
listen while an aged man read out the story of the passion
and the cross. That stoiy spoke to the Russian heart ; for
the Russ, when left alone, has something of the Galilean in
his nature — a something soft and feminine, almost sacrificial ;
helping him to feel, with a force which he could never reach
by reasoning, the patient beauty of his Redeemer's life and
death.

"And what were the effects of this Bible-reading?"
" Who can tell ! You plant the acorn, your descendants
sit beneath the oak. One thing it did for us, which we could
never have done without its help — the Bible drove the Jesu-
its from our midst — and if we had it now in every house it
would drive away these monks."

The story of the battle of the Bible Society and the Order
of Jesus may be read in Joly, and in other Avriters. When

292 Feee Eussia.

tliat Order Avas sujipressed in Rome, and the Fathers were
banished from every Cathohc state in Europe, a remnant Avas
received into Russia by the insane Emperor Paul, Avho took
them into his favor in the hope of vexing the Roman Court,
and of making them useful agents in his Catholic provinces.
Well they repaid him for the shelter given — not only in the
Polish cities, but in the privatest recesses of his home. Fa-
ther Gruber is said to have been familiar with every secret of
the palace under Paul. These exiles were a band of outlaws,
living in defiance of their spiritual chief and of their temj^o-
ral prince ; but while they clung with unslackening grasp to
the great traditions of their Society, they sought, by visible
service to mankind, the means of overcoming the hostility of
popes and kings. Nojhonest writer will deny that they were
useful to the Russians in. a secular sense, Avhatever trouble
they may have caused them in a religious sense. They
brought into this country the light of science and the love of
art then flourishing in the West ; and the colleges which tliey
opened for the education of youth were far in advance of the
native schools. They built their schools at Moscow, Riga,
Petersburg, Odessa, on the banks of the Volga, on the shores
of the Caspian Sea. They sought to be useful in a thousand
ways ; in the foreign colony, at the military s,tation, in the city
prison, at the Siberian mine. Thej went out as doctors and
as teachers. They followed the army into Astrakhan, and
toiled among the Kozaks of the Don ; but while thpy labored
to do good, they labored in a foreign and offensive spirit.
To the Russ people they were strangers and enemies ; sub-
jects of a foreign prince, and members of a hostile church.
Some ladies of the court went over to their rite ; a youth of
high family followed these court ladies ; then the clergy took
alarm, and raised their voices against the strangers. What
offended the Russians most of all Avas the assumption by
these Jesuits of the name of missionaries, as though the peo-
ple Avere a savage horde not yet reclaimed to God and His
Holy Church. Unhappily for the fathers, this title Avas ex-
pressly forbidden to the Catholic clergy by Russian laAV, and
this assumption was an act of disobedience Avhich left them
at the mercy of the croAvn.

But Avhile the Emperor Paul Avas kind to them, these acts

The Bible. 293

were passed in silence, and Alexander seemed unlikely to
withdraw his favor from his father's friends. The issue of a
New Testament in the native sjieech brought on the conflict
and insured their fate.

Following the traditions of their Order, the Jesuits heard
the proposal to jDrint the Bible in the Russian tongue, so that
every man should read it for himself, with fear, and armed
themselves to oppose the scheme. They spoke, they wrote,
they preached against it. Calling it an error, they showed
how much it was disliked in Rome. They said it was an
English invasion of the country ; and they stirred up the
popes to attack it ; saying it would be the ruin, not only of
the Roman clergy, but of the Greek.

Alexander's eyes were opened to the character of his guests.
The Bible was a comfort to himself, and why should others
be refused the blessing he had found ? Who were these men,
that they should prevent his people reading the "Word of
Life?

A dangerous question for the Tsar to ask ; for Prince
Golitsin Avas close at hand with his reply. The worst day's
work the Jesuits had ever done was to disturb this prince's
family by converting his nephew to the Roman Church.
Golitsin called it seduction ; and seduction from the national
faith is a public crime. "When, therefore, Alexander came to
ask who these men were, Golitsin answered that they were
teachers of false doctrine ; disturbers of the public peace ;
men who were banished by their sovereigns ; a body clis-
banded by their popes. And then, in spite of their good
deeds, they were sent away — first from Moscow and Peters-
burg, afterwards from every city of the empire. Tlieir ex-
pulsion was one of the most popular acts of a long and
glorious reign.

The Jesuit writers lay the blame of their expulsion on the
Bible Societies.

From other sources I learn that the Xew Testament was
free until Alexander's death, and that the copies found their
way into every city and village of the land. "With the death
of Alexander the First came a change. After the conspiracy
of 1825, the new Emperor listened to his black clergy, and
the Bible was placed under close arrest.

294 Feee Kussia.

The Russian Bible Society was called a Russian parlia-
ment. All i:>arties in the state were represented on the board
of management; Orthodox bishops sitting next to Old Be-
lievers, and Old Believers next to Dissenting priests. The
Bible, in which they all believed, was a common ground, on
which they could meet and exchange the words of peace.
But Nicolas, ruling by the sword, had no desire to see these
boards pursuing their active and independent course ; and his
monks had little trouble in persuading him to replace the Bi-
ble by an official Book of Saints.

CHAPTER LVI.

PARISH PEIESTS.

In this empire of villages there is a force of six hundred
and ten thousand parish priests (a little more or less) ; each
parish priest the centi'e of a circle, who regard him not only
as a man of God, ordained to bless in His holy name, but as
a father to advise them in weal and woe. These priests are
not only popular, but in country villages they are themselves
the people.

Father Peter, the village pope, is a countryman like the
members of his flock. In his youth, he must have been at
school and college — a smart lad, perhaps, alert of tongue and
learned in decrees and canons ; but he has long since sobered
down into the dull and patient priest you see. In speech, in
gait, in dress, he is exactly like the peasants in yon dram-shop
and yon field. His cabin is built of logs; his wife grows
girkins, which she carries in a creel to the nearest town for
sale ; and the reverend gentleman puts his right hand on the
plough. He does not preach and teach ; for he has little to
say, and not a word that any of his neighbors would care to
hear. Knowing that his lot in life is fixed, he has no induce-
ment to refresh his mind with learning, and to bm^nish u]) his
oratorical arms. The world slips past him, unperceived ; and,
with his grip on the peasant's spade, he sinks insensibly into
the peasant's class. Yet Peter's life, though it may be hard

Parish Priests. 295

and poor, is not without lines of natural grace, the more af-
fecting from the homeliness of every thing around. His cabin
is very clean ; some flower-pots stand on his Avindow-sill ; a
heap of books loads his presses ; and his walls are picturesque
with pictures of chapel and saint. A pale and comely wife
is sitting near his door, knitting her children's hose, and watch-
ing the urchins at their play. Those boys are singing be-
neath a tree — singing with soft, sad faces one of their ritual
psalms. A calm and tender influence flows from his house
into the neighboring sheds. The dullest hind in the hamlet
sees that the pastor's little ones are kept in order, and that
his cabin is the pattern of a tidy village hut.

The i^astor has his patch of land to till, his bit of garden
ground to tend ; but on every side you find the homely folk
about him helping in his labor, each peasant in his turn, so as
to make his duties hght. Presents of many kinds are made
to him — ducklings, fish, cucumbers, even shoes and wrajis, as
well as angel-day offerings and benediction-fees. A priest is
so great a man in a village, that, even when he is a tipsy, idle
fellow, he is treated by his parishioners with a child-like duty
and resi^ect. The pastor can do much to help his flock, not
only in their spiritual Avants, but in their secular affairs. In
any quarrel with the police, it is of great importance to a
peasant that his priest should take his part ; and the pastor
commonly takes his neighbor's part, not only because he him-
self is poor, and knows the man, but because he hates all pub-
lic officers and suspects all men in power.

A great day for the parish priest is that on which a child is
born in his commune.

When Dimitri (the peasant living in yon big house is called
Dimitri) hears that a son has been given to liini, he runs for
his priest, and Father Peter comes in stately haste to welcome
and bless the little one. Finding the baby swinging in his
liulka. Father Peter puts on his cope, unclasps his book, turns
his face to the holy icons, and begins his prayer. "Lord
God," he cries, " we beg Thee to send down the light of Thy
face upon this child. Thy servant Constantine; and be he
signed with the cross of Thy only-begotten Son. Amen."

In two or three weeks the christening of little Constantine,
"servant of God," takes place. When the rite is performed

296 Free Russia.

at Iionie, the house has to be turned, as it Avere, into a chapel
for the nonce ; no difficult thing, as parlor, kitchen, hall, sa-
loon, are decorated Avith the Son, the Mother, and the patron
saint. A room is set apart for the office ; a rug is spread be-
fore the sacred pictures ; and on a table are laid three candles,
a fine napkin, and a glass of water from the well. A silver-
gilt basin is sent from the village church. Attended by his
reader and his deacon, each carrying a bundle. Father Peter
Avalks to the house, bearing a cross and singing a psalm, while
the censer is swung before him in the street.

The rite then given is long and solemn, the ceremony con-
sisting of many parts. First comes the act of driving out the
fiends ; when the pope, not yet in his jDerfect robes, takes up
the baby, breathes on his face, crosses him three times — on
temple, breast, and lips — and exorcises the devil and all his
imps; ending with the words, "May every evil and unclean
spirit that has taken np his abode in this infant's heart de-
part from hence !" Then comes the act of renouncing the
Evil One and all his works, in the baby's name. " Dost thou
renounce the devil?" asks the pope; on which the sponsors
turn, with the child, towards the setting sun, that land of
shadows in which the Prince of Darkness is supposed to
dwell, and answei', each, " I have renounced him." " Sj^it on
him !" cries the pope, who jets his own saliva into a corner,
as though the devil were present in the room. The sponsors
spit in turn. Here follows the confession of faith ; the sjDon-
sors being asked whether they believe that Christ is King and
God ; and, on ansAvering that they believe in Him as King and
God, are told to fall doAvn and Avorship Him as such. Next
comes the rite of baptism, AAdien the jDope puts on his bright-
est robe, the parents are sent aAvay, and the child is left to his
godfathers and godmothers. A taper is put into each spon-
sor's hand ; the candles near the font are lighted ; incense is
flung about ; the reader and deacon sing ; and the pope inaud-
ibly recites a prayer. The Avater is blessed by the pope dip-
ping his right hand into it three times, by breathing on it,
praying over it, and signing it Avith the cross. He uses for
that purpose a feather Avhich has been dipped into holy oil.
The child is anointed five times ; first on the forehead, with
this phrase : " Constantine, the servant of God, is anointed

Parish Priests. 297

with the oil of gladness ;" next on the chest, to heal his soul
and body ; then on the two ears, to quicken his sense of the
Word ; afterwards on his hands and feet, to do God's will and
walk in his way. Seized by the pope, the child is now plunged
into the font three times by rapid dips, the priest repeating
at each dip, " Constantine, the servant of God, is now baptized
in the name of the Father, and of tlie Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." If the young Christian is not drowned in the font
(as sometimes happens), he is clad in white, he receives his
name, his guardian angel, and his cross.

The rite of baptism ended, the sacrament of unction opens.
This sacrament, called the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit,
is said to represent the " laying on of hands " in the early
Christian Church. With a small feather, dipped once more
into the sacred oil, the pope again touches the baby's forehead,
chest, lips, hands, and feet, saying each time, " The seal of the
gift of the Holy Spirit ;" on which reader, deacon, and priest
all break into chants of hallelujah ! After unction comes the
act of sacrifice ; when the child, Avho has nothing else of his
own to give, offers up the Jiair of his head. Taking a pair
of shears, the pope snips off the down in four places from the
baby's head, making a cross, and saying, as he cuts each piece
away, " Constantine, the servant of God, is shorn in Thy
name." The hair is thrown into the font; more litany is
sung; and the child is at length given' back, fatigued and
sleepy, into his mother's arms.

Ten or twelve days later, Constantine must be taken by his
mother to mass, and receive the sacrament, as a sign of his
visible acceptance in the Chui-ch. A nurse walks up the stepS
before the royal gates ; and Avhen the deacon comes forAvard
with the cup in his hand, she goes to meet him. He takes a
small spoon and puts a drop of wine into the infant's mouth,
saying, " Constantine, the servant of God, communicates in
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Later in the
service, the pope himself takes up the child, and, pressing his
nose against the icons on the screen, cries, loudly, " Constan-
tine, the servant of God, is now received into tlie Church of
Christ."

Not less grand a time for Father Peter is a wedding-day.
The rite is longer, and the fees are more. Old Tartar cus-

293 Free Eussia.

toms keep their hold on these common folk, if not on the
higher ranks, and courtship, as we understand it, is a thinly
unknown. A match is made by the proposeress and the
parents, not by the youth and maiden — ^for in habit, if not in
law, the sexes live apart, and do not see much of each other
until the knot is tied.

A servant came into the parlor of a house in which I was
staying as a guest — came in simpering and crying — to say
that she wished to leave her place. '•' To leave I For what
cause ?"

"WeU, she was going to be married.

" Married, Maria I*' cried her mistress ; " when ?" " The
day after next," replied the woman, shedding tears.

'•' So soon, Mai-ia I And what sort of man are you going to
wed ?"'

The woman dropped her eyes. She could not say ; she had
not seen him yet. The proposeress had done it all, and sent
her word to appear in church at four ox-lock, the hour for
marrying persons of her class.

'•' You really mean to take this man whom you have never
seen ?"

'•' I must," said the woman ; " the prayers have been put up
in church."

"Do the parish popes raise no objections to such mar-
riages ?"

'•' Xo," laughed the lady. " Why should they object ? A
wedding brings them fees ; and in their cabins you will find
more children than kopecks."

The livings held by the parish clergy are not rich. Some
few city holdings may be worth three or four hundred pounds
a year ; these are the prizes. Few of the country pastors have
an income, over and above the kitchen-garden and plough of
land, exceeding forty or fifty pounds a year. The city priest,
like the country priest, has neither rank nor power in the
Church. The only chance for an ambitious man is, that his
wife may die ; in which event he can take the vows, put on
cowl and frock, obtain a career, become a fellow in the cor-
poration of monks, and rise, if he be daring, supple, and
adroit, to high places in his church.

That the parish priests are not content with their position,

A CoxsERVATivE Eevolutiox. 299

is oue of those open secrets in the Church which every day
become more difficult to keep. As married men, they feel
that they are needlessly depressed in public esteem, and that
the higher offices in the system should lie open to them no
less than to the monks. Being many in number, rich in learn-
ing, intimate with the people, they ought to be strong in fa-
vor ; yet through the craft of their black rivals, they have
been left, not only without the right of meeting, but without
the means of making their voices heard. The peasant was
never beaten down so low in the scale of life as his parish
priest ; for the serf had always his communal meeting, his
choice of elders, his right of speech, and his faculty of appeal.
The parish i^riests expect a change ; they expect it, not from
within the clerical body, but from without ; not from a synod
of monks, but from a married and reforming Tsar.

This change is coming on ; a great and healing revolution ;
an act of emancipation for the working clergy, not less strik-
ing and beneficent than the act of emancipation for the toil-
ing serfs.

CHAPTER LVII.

A COXSERVATIVE EEVOLUTIOX.

j Ix the great conflict between monks and parish priests, the
ignorant classes side with the monks, the educated classes
M'ith tlie parish priestsTj

The Black Clerg\-, having no wives and children, stand
apart from the world, and hold a doctrine hostile to the fami-
ly spirit. Their rivals — though they have faults, from Avhich
the clergy in countries more advanced are free — are educated
and social beings ; and taking them man for man through all
their grades, it is impossible to deny that the parish priests
are vastly superior to the monks.

Yet the "White Clergy occupied (until 1869) a place in
every way inferior to the Black. They were an isolated
caste ; they held no certain rank ; they could not rise in the
Church ; they exercised no power in her councils. Once a
priest, a man was a priest forever. A monk might live to be

300 Free Kussia.

Rector, Avchiinandrite, Bishop, and Metropolite. Not so a
married priest ; the round of whose duty was confined to his
parisli work — to christening infants, to confessing women, to
marrying lovers, to reading prayers for the dead, to saying
mass, to collecting fees, and quarrelling with the peasants
about his tithe. A monk directed his education ; a monk ap-
pointed him to his cure of souls ; a monk inspected his la-
bor, and loaded him with either praise or blame. A body of
monks could drive him from his parish church ; throw him
into prison ; utterly destroy the prospects of his life.

Great changes have been made in the present year; changes
of deeper moment to the nation than any thing effected in the
Church since the; reTofms of Peter the Great. 1

This work of reform was started by the Emperor throwing
open the clerical service to all the world, and putting an end
to that customary succession of father and son as popes.
[jPown to this^ear^he^clergy has been a class apart, a sacred
body, a Levitical order — in brief, a caste?\ Russia had her
priestly families, like the Tartars and the J^ews ; and all the
sons of a pope were bound to enter into the Church. This
Oriental usage has been broken through. The clergy has
been freed from a galling yoke, and the service has been oj^en-
ed to every one Avho may acquire the learning and enjoy the
call. Young men, who would otherwise have been forced to
take orders, will now be able to live by trade ; the crowd of
clerical idlers will melt away ; and many a poor student with
brains will be drawn into the spiritual ranks. This great re-
form is being carried forward less by edicts which would
fret the consciences of ignorant men than by the application
of general rules. To wit : a question has arisen whether, un-
der this open system, the old rule of " once a priest, always a
priest," holds good. It is a serious question, not for indi-
viduals only, but for the clerical society ; and the monks have
been moving heaven and earth to have their rule of " once a
priest, always a priest" confirmed. But they have failed.
No rule has been laid down in words, but a precedent has
been laid down in fact.

Father Goumilef, a parish priest in the town of Riazan, ap-
plies for leave to give up his frock and re-enter the world.
Count Tolstoi, Minister of Education, and the Emperor's per-

A CoxsERVATiVE Eevolutiox. 801

sonal representative in the Ploly Governing Synod, persuades
that body to support Goumilefs prayer. On the 12th of
Xovember (Oct. 31, O. S.) — a red-letter day henceforth in
the Russian calendar — the Emperor signs his release ; allow-
ing Gourailef to return from the clerical to the secular life.
All his riglits as a citizen are restored, and he is free to en-
ter the public service in any province of the empire, save only
that of Riazan, in which he has served the altar as a parish
l^riest.

Connected with the abolition of caste came the new laws
regulating the standing of a parish priest's children — laws
conceived in a most gracions spirit. All sons of a parish
priest are in future to rank as nobles ; sons of a deacon are
to be accounted gentlemen; sons of readers are to rank as
burghers.

In his task of raising the parish clergy to a higher level,
the reforming Emperor has found a tower of strength in In-
nocent, the noticeable man who occupies, in Troitsa, the Arch-
imandrite's chair, in Moscow, the Metropolite's throne.

Innocent passed his early years as a married priest in Sibe-
ria— doing, in the wild countries around the shores of Lake
Baikal, genuine missionary work. A noble wife went with
him to and fro ; heaven blessed him with children ; and the
father learned how to speak with effect to sire and son.
Thousands of converts blessed the devoted pair. At length
the woman fainted by the way, and Innocent was left to
mourn her loss; but not alone; their children remained to be
his pride and stay.

When the Holy Governing Synod raised the missionary
region of Irkutsk into a bishop's see, the crozier Avas forced
upon Innocent by events. Already known as the Apostle of
Siberia, the synod could do little more than note the fact, and
give him official rank. Of course, a mitre implied a cowl and
gown; but Innocent, though his wife was dead, refused to be-
come a monk. In stronger words than he was wont to use,
he urged that the exclusion of married popes from high office
in the priesthood was a custom, not a canon, of his Church.
To every call from the monks he answered that every man
should be called to labor in the vineyard of the Lord accord-
ing to his gifts. He yielded for the sake of peace ; but

302 Free Eussia.

though he took the vows, he hold to his views on clerical ce-
libacy, and the White Clergy had now a bishop to whom they
could look up as a worthy champion of their cause.

On the death of Philaret, two years ago, this friend of the
"White Clergy was chosen by the Emperor to take his seat ;
so that now the actual Archimandrite of Troitsa, and Me-
tropolite of Moscow, though he Avears the cowl, is looked
upon in Church society as a supporter of the married priests.

By happy chance, a first step had been taken towards one
great reform by Philaret, in raising to the chair of Rector of
the Ecclesiastical Academy of Moscow a priest who was not
a monk.

Forty miles to the north of Moscow rises a table-land, on
the edge of which is built a convent dedicated to the Holy
Trinity, called in RussiaUj JTimtsa. This convent is said to
be theTichest in the world ; not only in sacred dust and mi-
raculous images, but in cups and coffers, in wands and cross-
es, in. lamps and crowns. The shrine of St. Sergie, wrought
in the purest silver, weighs a thousand pounds ; and in the
same cathedral with St. Sergie's shrine there is a relievo of
the Last Supper, in which all the figures, save that of Judas,
are of finest gold. But these costly gauds are not the things
which draw pilgrims to the Troitsa. They come to kneel be-
fore that Talking Madonna which, once upon a time, held
speech with Serapion, a holy monk. They crowd round that
portrait of St. Nicolas, which was struck by a shot from a
Polish siege-gun, in the year of tribulation, when the Poles
had made themselves masters of Moscow and the surround-
ing plains. They come still more to kiss the forehead of St.
Sergie, the self-denying monk, who founded the convent, and
blessed the banner of Dimitri, before that prince set forth on
his campaign against the Tartar hordes on the Don. St.
Sergie is the defense of his country, and his grave in the con-
vent has never been polluted by the footprint of a foe. Oft-
en as Moscow fell, the Troitsa remained inviolate ground.
The Tartars never reached it. Twice, if not more, the Poles
advanced against it ; once with a mighty power, and the will
to reduce it, cost them what lives it might. They lay before
it sixteen months, and had to retire from before the walls at
last. The French under Napoleon wished to seize it, and a

A Conservative Kevolution. 303

body of troops was sent to the attack ; but the saintly jares-
ence which had driven off the Poles was too much for the
French. The troops returned, and the virgin convent stood.

These miracles of defense have given a vast celebrity to
the saint, who has come to be thought not only holy himself,
but a cause of holiness in others. On the way from Moscow
to Troitsa stands the hamlet of Ilotkoff, in which lies the
dust of Sergie's father and mother ; over whose tombs a
church and convent have been built. Every pilgrim on the
road to Troitsa stops at this convent and adores their bones.
" Have you been to Troitsa before ?" Ave heard a pilgrim ask
his fellow, as they trudged along the road. " Yes, thanks be
to God." "Has Sergie given you Avhat you came to seek?"
" Well, no, not all." " Then you neglected to stop at HotkofE
and adore his parents ; he was angry with you." " Perhaps ;
God knows. It may be so, Xext time I will go to Ilotkoff.
Overlook my sin !" A railway has been made from Moscow
to Troitsa, and the lazy herd of pilgrims go by train. The
better sort still march along the dirty road, and count their
beads in front of the wooden chapels and many rich crosses,
as of old. St. Sergie has gained in wealth, and lost in cred-
it, by the convenience offered to pilgrims in the railway line.

In the centre of this fortress and sanctuary the monks
erected an academy, in which priests were to be ti'ained for
their future work. A young man lives in it under Troitsa
rule, and leaves it with the Troitsa brand. The rector is a
man of rank in the church, equal to the Master of Trinity
among ourselves. Until the day when Philaret brought Fa-
ther Gorski into office, his post had always been filled by an
Archimandrite. Xow Father Gorski -was a learned man, a
good writer, and a great authority on points of church antiq-
uity and ceremonial. Great in reputation, he was also ad-
vanced in years. Some objected to him on the ground that
he was not a monk ; but his fame as a learned man, his no-
ticeable piety, and his nearness Avith the Metropolite, carried
him through. Even the monks forgave him Avhen they found
that he lived, like themselves, a secluded and cloistered life.

They liardly saAV hoAV much they Avere giving up in that
early fight ; for this man of monk-like habit had not taken
vows ; and in one of the strongholds of their power they

304: Feee Russia.

were placing the education of their clergy in charge of a par-
ish priest !

A second step in the line of march has been taken in the
nomination of a married pope to the post of Rector of the
Ecclesiastical Academy of !St. Petersburg. Father Yany-
cheff is this new rector ; and Father Yanycheff's wife is still
alive. This call of a married man to such a chair has fired the
Church with hope and fear — the White Clergy looking on it
Avith surprise and joy, the Black Clergy with amazement and
despair.

Dr. Yanycheff — in whose person the fight is raging be-
tween these benedicts and celibates — is a young priest, wlio
was educated in the academy, until he took his degree of doc-
tor, on which he was placed in the chair of theology at the
University of St. Petersburg. In that chair he became popu-
lar ; his lectures being eloquent, his manners easy, and his
opinions liberal. Some of the sleepy old prelates took alarm.
Yanycheff, they said, was exciting his pupils ; he was telling
them to read and think ; and the sleepy old prelates could
see no good in such exercises of the brain. Reading and
thinking lead men into doubt, and doubt is the plague by
which souls are lost. They moved the Holy Governing Syn-
od to interfere, and on the synod interfering, the professor re-
signed his chair. Resolved on keeping his conscience free,
he married, and accepted the office of pope in a city on the
Rhine. His intellectual worth was widely known; and when,
in process of time, a teacher was required for the young Prin-
cess Dagmar, a man skillful in languages and arts, as well as
learned and liberal. Dr. Yanycheff, was chosen for the task of
preparing the imperial bride. The way in which he dis-
charged his delicate office brought him into favor with the
great ; and on his return to his own country with the prin-
cess. Count Tolstoi got him appointed rector of the acade-
my— a position of highest trust in the Church, since it gives
him a leading influence in the education of future popes.

The monks are all aghast ; the Holy Governing Synod pro-
tests ; and even the Metropolite refuses to recognize this act.
But Count Tolstoi is firm, and the synod knows but too well
how the enemy stands at court. Yanycheff, on his side, has
been prudent ; and the Avonder caused by his nomination is

A Conservative Kevolution. 305

sensibly dying down. Meantime, people are getting used to
the idea of a man with wife and child conducting the educa-
tion of their future parish priests.

Once launched on a career of clerical reform, the court has
moved with regular, if with cautious strides. All men can
see that the first work to be done is to be done in the school-
room and the college ; for in Russia, as elsewhere, the teach-
ers make the taught ; and as the rectors train the priests,
ideas prevalent in the rectorial chairs will come in a few
years to be the j)aramount views of the Church.

A law has recently been passed by the Council of State, and
promulgated by the Emperor, which deals the hardest blow
yet suffered by the monks ; a law taking away the right of
nominating rectors of seminaries and academies from the
archbishops, and vesting it in a board of teachers and pro-
fessors ; subject only to approval — which may soon become a
tiling of course — by the higher spiritual powers. This law is
opposed by all the convents and their chiefs ; even Innocent,
though friendly to the married clergy, stands, on this j)oint,
with his class.

A first election under this new law has just occurred in
Moscow. When the law Avas published, Prof. Xicodemus,
holding the chair of Rector in the Ecclesiastical Seminary of
Moscow, sent in his resignation, on the ground that his posi-
tion was become that of a rector on sufferance. Every one
felt that by resigning his chair he was doing a noble thing ;
and if it had been possible for a monk to get a majority of
votes in an open board, Nicodemus %vould, on that account,
have been the popular choice. But no man wearing a cowl
and gown had any chance. The contest lay between two
married priests : Father Blagorazumof, a teacher in the sem-
inary, and Father Smirnof, editor of the Orthodox Review.
Innocent took some part against Father Smirnof, whose writ-
ings he did not like ; and Father Blagorazumof was elected
to the vacant chair.

What has been done in Moscow will probably be done in
other cities ; so that in twenty years from the present time
the education of youths for the ministry will have fallen en-
tirely into the hands of married men.

The same principle of election has been applied to the ajJ-

20

306 Feee Eussia.

pointment of rural deans. These officers were formerly
named by the bishop, according to his sole Avill and pleasure.
Now, by imperial order, they arc elected by deputies from
the parish priests.

CHAPTER LVIII.

SECRET POLICE.

The new principle of referring things to a popular vote is
coming into play on every side ; nowhere in a form more
striking than in the courts of law. Some twenty years ago
the administration of justice was the darkest blot on Russian
life.

What the Emperor had to meet and put away, on this side
of his government, was a colossal evil.

In a country over which the prince has to rule as well as
reign, a good many men must have a share in the exercise of
irresponsible and imperial power — more perhaps than would
have to divide the beneficent authority of a constitutional
king. A prince has only two eyes, two ears, and two hands.
The circle which he can see, and hear, and reach, is drawn
closely round his person, and in all that ho would do beyond
that line he must act through an intelligence other than his
own ; and for the blunders of this second self he has to bear
the blame.

The parties who exercise this power in ihe imperial name
are the secret police and the provincial governors, general and
local.

The secret police have an authority which knows no bounds,
save that of the Emperor's direct command. They have a
province of their own, apart from, and above, all other prov-
inces in the state. Their chief, Count Shouvalof, is the first
functionary of the empire, the only man who has a right of
audience by day and night. In Eastern nations rank is
measured in no small degree -by a person's right of access to
the sovereign. Now, the right of audience in the Avinter pal-
ace is governed by the clearest rules. Ordinary ministers of
the crown — home office, education, finance — can only see the

Secret Police. 807

Emperor once a week. Greater ministers — war and foreign
affairs — can see him once a day, but only at certain stated
hours. A minister of jDolice can walk into his cabinet any
hour of the day, into his bedroom any hour of the night.

Not many years ago the power of this minister was equal
to his rank at court ; in home affairs he was supreme ; and
many a poor ruler found himself at once his tool and dupe.
Much of this power has now been lodged in courts of law,
over which the police have no control ; but over and beyond
the law, a vast reserve is left with the police, who can still
revise a sentence, and, as an " administrative measure," send
a man into exile who has been acquitted by the courts.

"While I was staying at Archangel, an actor and actress
were brought from St. Petersburg in a tarantass, set down in
the grass-grown square, near the poet's pedestal, and told to
shift for themselves, though they Avere on no account to quit
the town without the governor's pass. No one could tell
what they had done. Their lips were closed ; the newspapers
were silent ; but a thousand tongues were busy with their
tale ; and the likelier story seemed to be, that they had been
playing a part in some drama of actual life. Clandestine
marriages are not so rare in Russia as they are in England
and the United States. Yoimg princes love to run away with
dancers, singers, and their like. Now these exiles in the
North country Avere said to have been concerned in a runaway
match, by which the pride of a powerful family had been
1 stung; and since it was impossible to punish the offending
jparties, these poor artists had been whisked off their tinsel
[thrones in order to appease a parent's wounded pride. Tlie
man and woman were not man and wife ; but care for such
loss of fame as a pretty Avoman might undergo by riding in a
tarantass, day and night, twelve hundred versts, through a
Avild country, Avith a man AA'ho was not her spouse, seems nexev
to have troubled the director of police. Stage heroines have
no character in official eyes. There they were, in the North ;
and there they would have to stay, until the real offenders
should be able fo'make^their peace, whether they could manage
to live in that city of trade, as honest folks should live, or not.
Clever in their art, they opened a barn long closed, and the
parlors of Archangel AA'ere agog Avith glee. "V^'hat they per-

308 Free Russia.

formed could hardly be called a play. Two persons make a
poor company, and these artists were of no high rank. They
just contrived to keep their visitors awake by doing easy
tricks in magic, and by acting short scenes from some of the
naughtiest pieces in the world. It is to be hoped, on every
o-round, that the angry gods may be appeased, that the hero
and lieroine of this comedy may come back to the great city
in which their talents are better known.

These actors Avere sent from the capital on a simple order
from the police. They have not been tried ; they have not
been heard in defense ; they have not been told the nature of
their crime. An agent drove to their door in a drojki, asked
to see So-and-so, and on going up, said, in tones which only
the police can use : " Get ready ; in three hours Ave start— for
Archangel." Young or aged, male or female, the victim in
such a case must snatch up what he can, follow his captor to
the street, get into his drojki, and obey in silence the invisi-
ble powers. Not a Avord can be said in bar of his sentence ;
no court Avill open its doors to his appeal ; no judge can hear
his case.

Their case is far from being a rare one. In the same
streets of Archangel you meet a lady of middle age, Avho has
been exiled from St. Petersburg on simple suspicion of being
concerned in seducing students of the university from their
allegiance to the country and the Church.

FolloAving in the Avake of other changes, some reforms have
been made in the universities ; made, on the Avhole, in a liber-
al and pacific sense. Nicolas put the students into uniform ;
hung swords in their belts ; and gave them a certain standing
in the public eye, as officers of the croAvn. They Avere his
servants ; and as his servants they enjoyed some rights Avhich
they dearly prized. They ranked as nobles. They had their
OAvn police. They stood apart, as a separate corporation ; and,
Avhether they sang through the street or sat in the j^lay-house,
they appeared in public as a corporate body, and always in
the front. But the reforming Emperor seeks to restore these
civilian youths to the habits of civil life. Their swords have
been hung up, their uniforms laid aside, their right of singing
songs and damning plays in a body put away. All these dis-
tinctions are noAV abolished ; and, like other civilians, the stu-

Secret Police. 309

dents have been placed under the city police and the ordinary
courts.

These changes are unpopular with the students, who imag-
ine that their dignity has been lessened by stripping them of
iiuiform and sword ; and some of these young men, profess-
ing all the Avhile republican and communistic creeds, are
clamoring for their class distinctions, and even hankering for
the times when they were " servants of the Tsar."

In the mouth of March (1869) some noisy meetings of these
young men took place. The Emperor heard of them, and
sent for Trepof, his first master of police — a man of shrewd
wit and generous temper, under whom the police have become
all but popular. " What do these students want ?" his Maj-
esty began. " Two things," replied the master ; " bread and
state." " Bread ?" exclaimed the Emperor. " Yes," said
the master ; " many of them are poor ; with empty bellies,
active brains, and saucy tongues."

" What can be done for them, poor fellows ?"

" A few purses, sire, would keep them quiet ; twenty thou-
sand rubles now, and promise of a yearly grant in aid of poor
students." " Let it be so,'^ said the prince.

These rubles were sent at once to the rector and jsrofessors
to dispense, according to their knowledge of the students'
needs ; but, unluckily, the rector and professors treated the
imperial gift as a bit of personal patronage, and they gave
the purses to each others' sons and nephews, lads who could
well afford to pay their fees. The students called fresh meet-
ings, talked much nonsense, and drew up an api^eal to the
people, written in a florid and offensive style.

Treating the Government as on equal power, these madcaps
printed what they called an ultimatum of four articles: (1.)
they demanded the right of establishing a students' club ; (2.)
the right of meeting and addressing the Government as a cor-
porate body; (3.) the control of all purses and scholarships
given to poor students; (4.) the abolition of university fees.
Following these articles came an appeal to the people for sup-
port against the minions of the crown !

A party in the state — the enemies of reform — were said to
have raised a fund for the purpose of corrupting these young
men ; and this party were suspected of emj)loying the agency

810 Free Eussia.

of clever women in carrying out their plans. It was not easy
to detect these female plotters at their work, for the revolution
they Avere trying to bring about was made with smiles and
banter over cups of tea ; but ladies were arrested in several
streets, and the lady to be seen in Archangel was one of these
victims — exiled on " suspicion " of having been concerned in
jirinting the appeal.

When she came into exile every one was amazed ; she seem-
ed so weak and broken ; she showed so little spirit ; and when
people talked with her they found she had none of the talents
necessary for intrigue. The comedy of government by " sus-
picion " stood confessed. Here was a prince, the idol of his
country, armed in his mail of proof, surrounded by a million
bayonets, not to speak of artillery, cavalry, and ships ; and
there was a frail creature, fifty years old, Avith neither beauty,
followers, nor fortune to promote her views : in such a foe,
what could the Emperor be sujiposed to fear ?

A young writer of some talent in St. Petersburg, one Dimi-
tri Pisareff, was bathing in the sea near his summer-house,
and, getting beyond his dej^th, was drowned. The young man
was a politician, and, having caused much scandal by his writ-
ings, he had passed some years in the fortress of St. Peter and
St. Paul. Freed by the Emperor, he resumed his pen. After
his death, Pavlenkoff, a bookseller in the city, who admired
his talents, and thought he had served his country, opened a
subscription among his readers for the purpose of erecting a
stone above the young author's grave. The secret police took
notice of the fact, and as Dimitri Pisareff was one of the
names in their black list, they understood this effort to do him
honor as a public censure of their zeal. Pavlenkoff was ar-
rested in his shop, put into a cart, and, with neither charge
nor hearing, driven to the province of Viatka, twelve hun-
dred versts from home. That poor bookseller still remains
in exile.

A more curious case is that of Gierst, a young novelist of
mark, who began, in the year 1868, to piiblish in a monthly
magazine, called " Russian Notes " (" Otetchestvenniva Zapis-
ki "), a romance which he called " Old and Young Russia."
The opening chapters showed that his tale was likely to be
clever; bold in thought and brilliant in style. Gierst took

Secret Police. 311

the part of Young Russia against Old Russia, and his chapters
were devoured by youths in all the colleges and schools.
Every one began to talk of the story, and to discuss the ques-
tions raised by it — men and things in the past, in contrast
with the hopes and talents of the present reign. The police
took part with the elders ; and when the novelist who made
the stir could not be answered with argument, they silenced
him by a midnight call. An officer came to his lodgings with
the usual order to dejDart at once. Away sped the horses, he
knew not whither — driving on night and day, until they ar-
rived at Totma, one of the smaller towns in the province of
Vologda, nine hundred versts from St. Petersburg. There he
was tossed out of his cart, and told to remain until fresh or-
ders came from the minister of police.

None of Gierst's friends, at first, knew where he was. Ilis
rooms in St. Petersburg were empty ; he had gone away; and
the only trace which he had left behind was the tale of a do-
mestic, Avho had seen him carried off. No one dared to ask
about him. Reference to him in the journals was forbidden ;
and the public only learned from the non-appearance of his
story in the " Notes " that the police had somehow interfered
Avith the free exercise of his ^en. The letters which he wrote
to the jjapers were laid aside as being too dangerous for the
public eye ; and it was only by a ruse that he conveyed to his
readers the knowledge of his whereabouts.

Gierst sent to the editor of " Notes " a letter of apology for
the interruption of his tale. He merely said it would not be
carried farther for the present; and the police raised no ob-
jection to the publication of this letter in the " Notes." They
overlooked the date whicli the letter bore ; and the one word
" Totma " told the public all.

The world enjoyed a laugh at the police; and the irritated
officials tried to vent their rage on the young wit who had
proved that they were fools. Gierst remains an exile at Tot-
ma, and the public still awaits the story from his hands. But
a thousand novels, rich in art and red in spirit, could not have
touched the public conscience like the haunting memory of
this i;nfinished tale.

312 Free Eussia.

CHAPTER LIX.

PROVINCIAL RULERS.

Russia is divided into pi-ovinces, each of which is ruled by
a governor and a vice-governor named by the crown.

A dozen years ago the governor and his lieutenant was each
a petty Tsar — doing what he j^leased in his department, and
answering only now and then, like a Turkish pasha, by forfeit-
ure of oflBce, for the public good. Charged with the mainte-
nance of public order, he Avas armed with a power as terrible
as that of the imperial police — the right to suspect his neigh-
bor of discontent, and act on this bare suspicion as though the
fault were proved in a court of law. In England and the
United States the word suspicion has lost its use, and well-
nigh lost its sense. Our officers of police are not permitted
to " suspect " a thief. They must either take him in the fact
or leave him alone. From Calais to Perm, however, the word
" suspicion " is still a name of fear ; for in all the countries
lying between the English Channel and the Ural Mountains,
"ordre superieure" is a force to which rights of man and
courts of law must equally give way.

The governor, or vice-governor, of a Russian province,
representing his sovereign lord, might find, or fancy that he
found, some reason to suspect a man of disaffection to the
crown. He might be wrong, he might even be absurdly
wrong. The man might be loyal as himself ; might even be
in a position to prove that loyalty in open court ; and yet his
innocence would avail him nothing. Proofs are idle when
the courts are not open to appeal; and judges have no power
to hear the facts. " Done by superior orders," was the an-
swer to all cries and protests. A resistless power Avas about
his feet, and he was swept away by a force from which there
was no appeal — not even to the ruling prince ; and the victim
of an erring, perhaps a malicious, governor, had no resource
against the Avrong, except in resignation to what might seem
to be the will of God.

Provincial Kulers. 813

The men who could use and abuse this terrible power were
many. Russia is divided into forty-nine provinces, besides
the kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Finland, the
Empire of Siberia, the khanates and principalities of the Cau-
casus. In these forty-nine provinces the governors and vice-
governors had the power to exile any body on mere suspicion
of political discontent. In other regions of the empire this
power was even more diffused than it was in the purely Rus-
sian districts. Taking all the Russians in one mass, there
can hardly have been less than two hundred men (excluding
the police) who could seize a citizen in the name of public
order, and condemn liim, unheard, to live in any part of the
empire from the Persian frontiers to the Polar Sea.

The Princess V , a native of Podolia, young, accom-
plished, wealthy, was loved by all her friends, adored by all
the young men of her province. One happy youth possessed
her heart, and this young man was worthy of the fortune he
had won. Their days of courtship passed, and they were
looking forward to the day when they would wear together
their sacred crowns ; but then an unseen agent crossed their
path and broke their hearts. Some days before their be-
trothal should have taken j)lace, an officer of police appeared
at the lover's door with a peremptory order for him to quit
Poltava for the distant government of Perm. Taken from
his house at a moment's notice, he was hurried to the general
office of police, where his papers were made out, and, being put
into a common cart, he was whisked away in the company of
two gendarmes. A month was occui:)ied in his journey; two
or three months elapsed before his friends in Podolia knew
that he was safe. He found a friend in the mountain town, by
whom his life as an exile was made a little less rugged than
it might have been. An advocate was won for him at court ;
the senate was moved, though cautiously, in his behalf ; and
at the end of two years his tormentor was persuaded to relax
his grip. But though he was suffered to leave his place of
banishment, he was forbidden to return to his native town.

The princess kept her faith to him — staying in Podolia
while he was still at Perm ; living down the suspicions in
which they were both involved — and joined him at St. Pe-
tersburg so soon as he got leave to enter that city. There

314 Free Russia.

they were married, and there I met thera in society. Not a
cloud is on their fame. They are free to go and come, except
that they must not live in their native town. No power save
that Avhich sent the bridegroom into exile can recall them to
their home. Yet down to this hour the gentleman has never
been able to ascertain the nature of his offense.

In time the country will free herself from this Asiatic abuse
of power. With bold but cautious hand the Emperor has
felt his way. ITis governors of provinces have been told to
act with prudence ; not to think of sending men into exile
unless the case is flagrant, and only then after reference of all
the facts to St. Petersburg.

^ Some dozen years ago, before the new reforms liad taken
hold, and officers in the public service had come to count on
the appeal being heard, a case occurred which allows one to
give, in the form of an anecdote, a picture of the evils now
being slowly rooted out. Count A , a young vice-gov-
ernor, fresh from college, came to live in a certain town of
the Black Soil country. Fond of dogs and horses, fond of
wines and dinners, the young gentleman found his official in-
come far below his wants. He took " his own " (what Rus-
sian officials used to call vzietka) from every side ; for he
loved to keep his house open, his stable full, his card-room
merry ; and a nice house, a good stable, and a merry card-
room, cost a good many rubles in the year. He was lucky
with his cards — luckier, some losers said, than a perfectly
honest player should be ; yet the two ends of his income and
his outgo never could be made to meet.

The treasurer of the town was Andrew Ivanovitch Gorr, a
man of peasant birth, who had been sent to college, and, after
taking a good degree, had been put into the civil service,
where, by his soft ways, his patient deference to those above
him, and his perfect loyalty to his trust, he had risen to the
post of treasurer in this provincial town.

Count A called Andrew into his chamber, and bade

liLm, with a careless gesture, pay a small debt for him. An-
drew bowed, and waited for the rubles, A • just waived

him off ; but seeing that he would not take the hint, the count
said, " Yes, yes, pay the debt ; we will arrange it in the after-
noon." Then Andrew paid the money, and in less than a

Provincial Kulers. 315

week he was asked to pay again. From week to week he
went on paying, with due submission to his chief, but with
an inward doubt as to Avhether this paying would come out
well. Twice or thrice the count was good enough to speak
of his affairs, and even to name a day when the money which
he was taking from the public coffers should be replaced.
In the mean time the debt was every week increasing in
amount ; so that the provincial chest was all but drained to
pay the vice-governor's personal debts.

Andrew was in despair, for the day was fast coming round
when the Imperial auditors would come to revise his books
and count the money in his box. Unless the fund was re-
stored before they came he would be lost; for the balance
was in his charge, and the count could hardly cover his de-
fault. On Andrew telling his wife what he had been drawn,
by his habit of obeying orders, into doing, he was urged by
that sage adviser to go at once to the governor and beg him
to replace the cash before the auditors arrived.

*' The auditors will come next week ?" asked A . "All

will be well. I will send a messenger to my estates. In five
days he will come back, and the money shall be paid. Pre-
pare a draft of the account, and bring it to my house, with
the proper receipt and seal."

On the fifth day the auditors arrived, a little before their
time ; and being eager to push on, they named the next morn-
ing, at ten o'clock, for going into the accounts. The treas-
urer ran to the palace, and saw the count in his public room,
surrounded by his secretaries. " It is well," he said to An-
drew, with his pleasant smile ; " the messenger has come
back with the money ; bring the paper and the receipt to my
smoking-room at ten o'clock to-night, and we'll jiut the ac-
count to rights."

Andrew was at his door by ten o'clock with the statement
of his debts, and a receipt for the money. " Yes," said the
count, dropping his eye down the line of figures, " the ac-
count is just — fifteen thousand seven hundred rubles. Let
me look at the receipt. Yes, that is well drawn. You de-
serve to be promoted, Andrew ! Talents like yours are lost
in a provincial town. You ought to be a minister of state !
Oblige me by asking my man to come in."

316 Fkee Russia.

A servant entered.

" Go up to the madame, and ask her if she can come down
stairs for a moment," said the count. The servant slipped
away, and the count, while waiting for his return, made many
jokes and pleasantries, so that the time ran swiftly past. He
kept the papers in his hand.

When Andrew saw that it was near eleven o'clock, he ven-
tured to ask if the man was not long in coming. " Lono-,"
exclaimed the vice-governor, starting up, " an age. Where
can the fellow be ? He must have fallen asleep on the stairs."

Going out of the room in search of him, the count closed
the door behind him, saying, " Wait a few minutes ; I \vill go
myself." Andrew sat still as a stone. He noticed that the
count had taken with him the schedule of debts and the
signed receipt. He felt uneasy in his mind. He stared about
the room, and counted the beatings of the clock. His head
grew hot; his heart was beating with a throb that could be
heard. "No other sound broke the night ; and when he open-
ed the door and put his car to the passage, the silence seemed
to him like that of a crypt.

The clock struck twelve.

Leaping up from his stupor, he banged the door and shout-
ed np the stairs, but no one answered him; and snatching a
fearful daring from his misery, he ran along several corridors
until he tripped and fell over a man in a great fur cloak.
" Get up, and show me to the vice-governor's room," said
Andrew fiercely, on Avhich the domestic shook his cloak
and rubbed his eyes. " The vice-governor's room ?" " Yes,
fellow ; come, be quick." The man led him back to the room
he had left; which was, in fact, the private I'eception-room.
" Stay here, and I will seek him." Shoi'tly the man returned
with news that his master was in bed. " In bed !" cried
Andrew, more and more excited ; " go to him again, and ask
him if he has forgotten me. Tell him I am waiting his re-
turn." A minute later he came back to say the count was
fast asleep, and that his valet dared not wake him for the
world. "Asleep!" groaned the poor treasurer; "you must
awake him. I can not leave without seeing him. It is the
Emperor's service, and will not w%ait."

At the Emperor's name the servant said he would try

Peovincial Rulers. 817

again. An hour of misery went by before he came to say
the count Avas iu bed, and would not see him. If he had busi-
ness to transact, he must come another day, and at the recep-
tion hour.

In a moment Andrew Avas at the count's door and in his
room, to which the noise brought up a dozen people. " What
is this tumult all about?" frowned the count, rising sharply in
his bed. "Tumult!" said Andrew, waxing hot with terror;
"I want the rubles." "Rubles !" said the count, with feign-
ed astonishment ; " what rubles do you mean ?" " The rubles
we have taken from the provincial coffer." " That we have
taken from the coffer ! We ? What we ? What rubles ?
Go to bed, man, and forget your dreams."

"Then give me back my paper and receipt."

" Paper and receipt !" said the count, with affected pity ;
" look to him well. See him safe home ; and tell his wife to
look that he does not wander in his sleep. He might fall into
the river in such fits. Look to him ;" and the vice-governor
fell back upon his pillow as the servant bowed.

Put to the door, and left to seek his way, the treasurer felt
that he Avas lost. The count, he saw, would swear and for-
swear. Even if he confessed his fault to the auditors, telling
them how he had been persuaded against his duty, the count
could produce his receipt in proof that the funds had been re-
paid.

Going back to his office, he sat down on a stool, and after
looking at his books and pajiers once again, to see that the
Avhole night's work Avas not a dream, as the count had said,
he took up his pen and Avrote a history of his affairs.

Restless in her bed, his wife got up to seek him ; and know-
ing that he was busy with his accounts, and Avould be likely
to stay late Avith his chief, she went into his office, Avhere the
light Avas burning dimly on the desk — to find him hanging
from a beam. Piercing the air Avith her cries, she brought
in a crowd of people, some of Avhom cut down the body,
while others ran for the doctor. He Avas dead.

Like an Oriental, he killed himself in order that, in his
death, he might punish the man Avhom he could not touch in
life.

The paper Avhich he left on his desk A^'as open, and as many

318 Free Eussia.

persons saw it in part, and still more knew of its existence,
the matter could not be hushed up, even though the vice-
governor had been twenty times a count. The people cried
for justice on the culprit ; and by orders from St. Petersburg
the count was relieved of his office, arrested on the charge o^
abusing a public trust, and placed on his defense before a se-
cret commission in the town over which he had lately rei^-ned.

The Emperor, it is said, was anxious to send him to the
mines, from which so many nobler men had recently come
away ; but the interest of his family was great at court ; the
secret commission w^as a friendly one ; and he escaped with
the sentence of perpetual dismissal from the public service —
not a light sentence to a man who is at once a beggar and a
count.

Alexander, feeling for the widow of his dead servant, order-
ed the pension which would have been due to her husband to
be paid to her for life.

CHAPTER LX.

OPEN CO UET S .

Offenses like those of A (some twelve years old),

in which a great offense was proved, yet justice was defeated
more than half, in spite of the imperial wishes, led the coun-
cil of state into considering how far it would be well to re-
place the secret commissions by regular courts of law.

The public benefits of such a change were obvious. Jus-
tice would be done, with little or no respect to persons ; and
the Emperor would be relieved from his direct and personal
action in the punishment of crime. But Avhat the public
gained the circles round the prince were not unlikely to lose ;
and these court circles raised a cry against this project of re-
form. " The obstacles," they said, " were vast. Except in
Moscow and St. Petersburg, no lawyers could be found ; the
code was cumbrous and imperfect; and the public was un-
prepared for such a change. If it was difficult to find judges,
it was impossible to find jurors." Listening to every one,

Open Courts. 319

and weighing facts, the Emperor held his own. He got re-
ports drawn up ; he won his opponents over one by one ; and
in 1865 the council of state was ready with a volume of legal
reform, as vast and noble as his i>laii for emancipating serfs.

Courts of justice were to be open in every province, and all
these courts of justice were to be public courts. Trained
judges Avere to preside. The system of Avritten evidence was
abolished, A prisoner was to be charged in a formal act; he
was to see the witnesses face to face ; he was to have the
right, in person or by his counsel, of questioning those wit-
nesses on points of fact. A jury was to decide the question
of guilt or innocence. The judges were to be jDaid by the
crown, and were on no pretext Avhatever to receive a fee, A
juror was to be a man of means — a trader, a well-off peasant,
an officer of not less than five hundred rubles a year, A ma-
jority of jurors was to decide.

The Imperial code was brought into harmony with these
new methods of procedure. Capital punishment was abolished
for civil crimes ; Siberia was exchanged for the club and the
axe; Archangel and the Caucasus were substituted for the
mines. The Tartar punishments of beating, flogging, running
the ranks, were stopped at once, and every branch of criminal
treatment was brought up — in theory, at least — to the level
of England and the United States,

Term by term this new system of trial by judge and jury,
instead of by secret commissions, is now being introduced
into all the larger towns, I have Avatched the Avorking of
this new system in seA^eral provinces ; but give an account, by
pi-eference, of a trial in a new court, in a new district, under
circumstances Avhich put the virtues of a jury to some local
strain.

Dining one evening Avith a friend in Rostof, on the Lower
Don, I find myself seated next to President GraA-y, to Avhom
I am introduced by our common host as an English barrister
and justice of the peace. The Assize is sitting, and as a cu-
rious case of child-exjiosure is coming on next day, about the
facts of Avhich provincial feeling is much excited, President
Gravy offers me a seat in his court.

This court is a new court, opened in the present year; a
movable court, consisting of a president and tAs'o assistant

320 Free Kussia.

judges ; sitting in turn at Taganrog, Berdiansk, and Rostof,
towns between which there is a good deal of rivahy in busi-
ness, often degenerating into local strife. The female accused
of exposing her infant comes from a Tartar village near Ta-
ganrog ; and as no good thing was ever known to come from
the district of Taganrog, the voice of Rostof has condemned
this female, still untried, to a felon's doom.

Next morning we are in court by ten o'clock — a span-new
chamber, on which the jiaint is not yet dry, with a portrait of
the Imperial law-reformer hung above the judgment-seat. A
long hall is parted into three portions by a dais and two silk-
en cords. The judges, with the clerk and public prosecutor,
sit on the dais, at a table ; and the citizens of Rostof occupy
the benches on either wing. In front of the dais sit the ju-
rors, the short-hand wi'iter (a young lady), the advocates, and
witnesses ; and near these latter stands the accused woman,
attended by a civil officer of the court. Nothing in the room
suggests the idea of feudal state and barbaric power. Presi-
dent Gravy wears no wig, no robe — nothing but a golden
chain and the pattern civilian's coat. No halberts follow
him, no mace and crown are borne before him. He enters by
the common door. A priest in his robes of office stands be-
side a book and cross ; he is the only man in costume, as the
advocates wear neither wig nor gown. No soldier is seen ;
and no policeman except the officer in charge of the accused.
There is no dock ; the prisoner stands or sits as she is placed,
her back against the wall. If violence is feared, the judges
order in a couple of soldiers, who stand on either side the
prisoner holding their naked swords ; but this precaution is
seldom used. An open gallery is filled A\-ith persons who
come and go all day, without disturbing the court below.

President Gravy, the senior judge, is a man of forty-five.
The son of a captain of gendarmerie in Odessa, he took by
choice to the profession of advocate, and after three years'
practice in the courts of St. Petersburg, he Avas sent to the
new Azof circuit. His assistant judges ai'e younger men.

President Gravy opens his court ; the priest asks a bless-
ing ; the jurors are selected from a j^anel ; the prisoner is told
to stand forth ; and the indictment is read by the clerk. A
keen desire to see the culprit and to hear the details of her

Open Courts. 321

crime has filled the benches with a better class than common-
ly attends the court, and many of the Rostof ladies flutter in
the gayest of morning robes. The case is one to excite the
female heart.

Anna Kovalenka, eighteen years of age, and living, when at
home, in a village on the Sea of Azof, is tall, elastic, dark,
with ruddy complexion, and braided hair bound up in a crim-
son scarf. Some Tartar blood is in her veins, and the young-
woman is the ideal portrait of a Bokhara bandit's wife. A
motherly old creature stands by her side — an aunt, her mother
being long since dead. Her father is a peasant, badly off,
W'ith five girls ; this Anna eldest of the five.

Her case is, that she had a lover, that she bore a child, that
she concealed the birth, and that her infant died. In her de-
fense, it is alleged, according to the manners of her country,
that her lover was a man of her own village, not a stranger ;
one of those governing points which, on the Sea of Azof,
make a young woman's amours right or wrong. So far, it is
assumed, no fault is fairly to be charged. Her child was
born and died; the facts are not disputed; but the defend-
ants urge, in explanation, that she Avas very young in years ;
that her couching was very hard ; that milk-fever set in, with
loss of blood and wandering of the brain ; that the young
mother was helpless, that the infant was neglected uncon-
sciously, and that it died.

Very few persons in the court appear inclined to take this
view ; but those who take it feel that the lover of this girl is
far more guilty than the girl herself ; and they ask each
other why the seducer is not standing at her side to answer
for his life. His name is known ; he is even supposed to be
in court. Gospodin Lebedeff, the public prosecutor, has done
his best to include him in the criminal charge ; but he is
foiled by the woman's love and wit. By the Imperial code,
the fellow can not be touched unless she names him as the
father of her child ; and all Lebedeff's appeals and menaces
are thrown away upon her, this heroine of a Tartar village
baffling the veteran lawyer's arts with a steadiness worthy of
a better cause and a nobler man.

The first witness called is a peasant woman from the vil-
lage in Avhich Anna Kovalenka lives. She is not sworn in the

21

322 Free Eussia.

English way, the court having been put, as it were, under
sacred obUgations by the priest ; but the bench instructs her
as to the nature of evidence, and enjoins her to speak no
word that is not true. She says, in few and simple words,
she found the dead body ; she carried it into Anna's cabin ;
the young woman admitted that the child was hers ; and, on
further questions, that she had concealed the birth. She
gives her evidence quietly in a breathless court, her neighbor
standing near her all the while, and the judge assisting her
by questions now and then. The audience sighs when she
stands down ; her evidence being full enough to send the pris-
oner to Siberia for her natui-al life.

The second witness is a doctor — bland, and fat, and scien-
tific— the witness on whose evidence the defense will lie. A
quickened curiosity is felt as the fat and fatherly man, with
big blue spectacles and kindly aspect, rises, bows to the bench,
and enters into a long and delicate report on the maladies un-
der which females suffer in and after the throes of labor, when
the regular functions of mind and body have been deranged
by a sudden call upon the powers reserved by nature for the
sustenance of infant life. A buzz of talk on the ladies' bench
is speedily put down by a tinkle of President Gravy's bell.
The judges put minute and searching questions to this wit-
ness ; but they make no notes of what he says in answer ; the
general purpose of which is to show that the first medical ev-
idence picked up by the police was defective ; that a woman
in the situation of Anna, poor, neglected, inexperienced, might
conceal her child without intending to do it harm, and might
cause it to die of cold without being morally guilty of its
death. Two or three questions are put to him by Lebedeff,
and then the kindly, fat old gentleman wipes his spectacles
and drops behind.

LebedefE deals in a lenient spirit with the case. The facts,
he says (in effect), are strong, and tell their own tale. This
woman bears a child; she conceals the birth; this conceal-
ment is a crime. She puts her child away in a secret place ;
her child is found dead— dead of hunger and neglect. Who
can doubt that she exposed and killed this child in order to
rid herself at once of her burden and her shame? "The
crime of child-murder is so common in our villages," he con-

Open Coukts. 323

eludes, " that it cries to heaven against us. Let all good
men combine to put it down, by a rigorous execution of the
law."

Gospodin Tseborenko, a young advocate from Taganrog,
sent over specially to conduct the defense, replies by a brief
examination of the facts ; contending that his client is a girl
of good character, who has never had a lover beyond her vil-
lage, and is not likely to have committed a crime against na-
ture. He suggests that her child may have been dead at the
birth — that in her pain and loneliness, not knowing what she
was about, and never dreaming about the Code, she concealed
the dead body from her father's eyes. Admitting that infant
murder is the besetting sin of villagers in the south of Rus-
sia, he contends that the children put away are only such as
the villagers consider things of shame — that is to say, the
offspring of their women by strangers and men of rank.

President Gravy rings his bell — the court is all alert — and,
after a brief presentment of the leading points to the jury,
who on their side listen with grave attention to every word,
he puts three several queries into writing :

I. Whether in their opinion Anna Kovalenka exposed her
child with a view to kill it ?

II. Whether, if she did not in their opinion expose it with
a view to kill it, she Avillfully concealed the birth ?

III. Whether, if she either knowingly exposed and killed
her child, or willfully concealed the birth, there were any cir-
cumstances in the case which call for mitigation of the pen-
alties provided by the penal code ?

The sheet of paper on which he writes these queries is
signed by the three judges, and handed over to the foreman,
who takes it and retires with his brethren of the jury to find
as they shall see fit.

While the trial has been proceeding, Anna Kovalenka has
been looking on with patient unconcern, neither bold nor
timid, but with a look of resignation singular to watch.
Only once she kindled into spirit ; that was when the peas-
ant woman was describing how she found the body of her
child. She smiled a little when her advocate was speaking —
only a faint and vanishing smile. Lebedeff seemed to strike
her as something sacred ; and she listened to his not unkind-

324 Free Kussia.

ly speech as slie might have listened to a sermon by her vil-
lage priest.

In twenty minutes the jury comes into court with their
finding written by the foreman on the sheet of paper given to
him by the judge. President Gravy rings his bell, and bids
the foreman read his answer to the first query.

" No !" says the foreman, in a grave, loud voice. The audi-
ence starts, for this is the capital charge.

To the second query, " No !"

" That is enough," says the judge ; and, turning to the
woman, he tells her in a tender voice that she has been tried
by her country and acquitted, that she is now a free woman,
and may go and sit down among her friends and neighbors.

Now for the first time she melts a little; shrinks behind
the policeman ; snatches up the corner of her gown ; and
steadying herself in a moment, wipes her eyes, kisses her
aunt, and creeps away by a private door.

Every body in this court has done his duty well, the jurors
best of all ; for these twelve men, who never saw an open
court in their lives until the current year, have found a ver-
dict of acquittal in accordance with the facts, but in the teeth
of local prejudice, bent on sending the woman from Tagan-
rog to the mines for life.

What schools for liberty and tolerance have been opened
in these courts of law !

CHAPTER LXI.

ISLAM.

Kazan is the point where Europe and Asia meet. The
paper frontiers lie a hundred miles farther east, along the
crests of the Ural Mountains and the banks of the Ural Riv-
er ; but the actual line on which the Tartar and the Russian
stand face to face, on which mosque and church salute the
eye together, is that of the Lower Volga, flowing through the
Eastern Steppe, from Kazan to the Caspian Sea. This front-
ier line lies eastward of Batrdad.

Islam. 325

Kazan, a colony of Bokhara, an outpost of Khiva, was not
very long ago the seat of a splendid khanate ; and she is still
regarded by the fierce and languid Asiatics as the western
frontier of their race and faith. In site and aspect this old
city is extremely fine, especially when the floods run higli,
and the swamps beneath her walls become a glorious lake.
A crest of hill — which poets have likened to a wave, a keel,
and a stallion's back — runs parallel to the stream. This crest
is the Kremlin, the strong place, the seat of empire ; scarped,
and walled, and armed ; the battlements crowned with gate-
ways, towers, and domes. Beyond the crest of hill, inland
from the Volga, runs a fine plateau, on which stand remnants
of rich old courts and towers — a plateau somewhat bare,
though brightened here and there by garden, promenade, and
chalet. Under this ridge lies Kaban Lake, a long, dark sheet
of water, on the banks of which are built the business quai--
ters, in which the craftsmen labor and the merchants buy
and sell — a wonderfully busy and thriving town. Each quar-
ter has a character of its own. The Kremlin is Christian ;
the High Street Germanesqne. A fine old Tartar gateway,
called the Tower of Soyonbeka, stands in front of the cathe-
dral ; but much of the citadel has been built since the khan-
ate fell before the troops of Ivan the Fourth. Down in the
lower city, by the Kaban Lake, dwell the children of Islam,
the descendants of Batu Khan, the countrymen of the Gold-
en horde.

The birth-place of these Tartar nations was the Eastern
Steppe ; their line of march was the Volga bank ; and their
affections turn still warmly to their ancient seats. The names
of Khiva and Bokhara sound to a Tartar as the names of She-
chem and Jerusalem sound to a Jew. In his poetry these
countries are his ideal lands. lie sings to his mistress of the
groves of Bokhara ; he compares her cheek to the apples of
Khiva ; and he tells her the fervor of his passion is like the
summer heat of Balkh.

An Arab legend puts into the Prophet's mouth a saying,
which is taken by his children as a promise, that in countries
Avhere the palm-trees bear fruit his followers should possess
the land ; but that in countries where the palm-trees bear no
fruit, though they might be dwellers for a time, the land

326 Free Russia.

would nevei" be their oAvn. The promise, if it were a prom-
ise, has been kept in the spirit for a thousand years. No
date-bearing country known to the Arabs defied their arms ;
from no date-bearmg country, once overrun, have they been
yet dislodged. When Islam pushed her outposts beyond the
line of palms, as in Spain and Russia, she had to fall back,
after her trial of strength on the colder fields, into her natu-
ral zones. As she fell back from Granada on Tangiers and
Fez, so she retired from Kazan on Khiva and Bokhara — a
most unwilling retreat, the grief of which she assuaged in
some degree by passionate hope of her return. The Moors,
expecting to reconquer Seville and Granada, keep the keys of
their ancient palaces, the title-deeds of their ancient lands in
Spain, The Kirghiz, also, claim the lands and houses of their
countrymen, and the Kirghiz khan describes himself as lineal
heir to the reigning princes of Kazan. In the East, as in the
West, the children of Islam look on their present state as a
correction laid upon them by a father for their faults. Some
day they trust to find fresh favor in his sight. The term of
their captivity may be long ; but it Avill surely pass away, and
when the Compassionate yields in his mercy, they will return
in triumph to their ancient homes.

In the mean time, it is right to mark the different spirit in
which the vanquished sons of Islam have been treated in the
West and in the East. From Granada every Moor was driv-
en by fire and sword ; for many generations no Moor was
suffered to come back into Spain, under pain of death. In
Russia the Tartars were alloAved to live in peace ; and after
forty years they were allowed to trade in the city Avhich had
formerly been their own. No doubt there have been fierce
and frequent persecutions of the weaker side in these coun-
tries ; for the great conflict of cross and crescent has groAv^n
into a second nature, equally Avith the Russian and Tartar,
and the rivalries which once divided Moscow and Kazan still
burn along the Kirghiz Steppe. The capitals may be farther
off, but the causes of enmity are not remo\^ed by space and
time. The cross is at St. Petersbui-g and Kief, the crescent
at Bokhara and Khiva ; but betAveen these points there is a
sympathy and an antipathy, like that which fights betAveen
the tAvo magnetic poles. The Tai'tars have captured Nijni

Islam. 327

and Moscow many times ; the Russians will some day plant
their standards on the Tower of Timour Beg.

A man who walks through the Tartar town in Kazan, ad-
miring the painted houses, the handsome figures, the Oriental
garbs, the graceful minarets, can hardly help feeling that these
children of Islam hold their own with a grace and dignity
worthy of a prouder epoch. "Given to theft and eating
horse-flesh," is the verdict of a Russian officer ; " otherwise
not so bad." " Your servants seem to be Tartar ?" " Yes,
the rascals make good servants ; for, look you, they never
drink, and when they are trusted they never steal." In all
the great houses of St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in the
large hotels everywhere, we have Tartar servants, chosen on
accoimt of their sobriety and honesty. The Begs and Mirzas
fled from the country when their city was stormed, oind only
the craftsmen and shepherds remained behind ; yet a new
aristocracy of trade and learning has sprung up ; and the
titles of mirza and moUah are now enjoyed by men whose
grandfathers held the plough. These Tartars of Kazan are
better schooled than their Russian neighbors ; most of them
can read, write, and cipher ; and their youths are in high de-
mand as merchants, salesmen, and bankers' clerks — offices of
trust in which, with care and patience, they are sure to rise.
Mirza Yunasoff, Mirza Burnaief, and Mirza Apakof, three of
the richest traders in the province, are self-made men. No
one denies them the rank of mirza (lord, or prince). IMirza
Yunasoff has built, at his private charge, a mosque and
school.

It is very hard for a Christian to get any sort of clue to
the feelings of these sober and industrious folk. That they
value their religion more than their lives is easy to find out ;
but whether they share the dreams of their brethren in Khiva
and Bokhara is not known. Meanwhile they work and pray,
o-row rich and strong. An innocent and useful body in the
empire, they are wisely left alone, so far as they can be left
alone.

They can not, however, be treated as of no importance in
the state. They are of vast importance ; not as enemies only,
but as enemies camped on the soil, and drawing their supports
from a foreign land. Even those among the Tartars who are

828 Free Eussia.

least excited by events around them, feel that they are out of
their natural place. They hate the cross. They are Asiatics ;
with their faces and affections turning day and night, not to-
wards Moscow and St. Petersburg, but towards Khiva, Bok-
hara, and Samarcand. A foreign city is their holy lAace, a
foreign ruler their anointed chief. They get their mollahs
from Bokhara, and they wait for conquerors from the Kirghiz
Steppes. They have not learned to be Russians, and they will
not learn ; so that, whether the Government wishes it or not,
the conflict of race and creed will rage through the coming
years, even as it has raged through the past.

Reforming the country on every side, the Emperor is not
neglecting this Eastern point; and in the spirit of all his
more recent changes, he is taking up a new position as re-
gards the Tartar race and creed. Nature and policy com-
bine to prevent him trying to convert the Mussulmans by
force ; but nothing prevents him from trying to draw them
over by the moral agencies of education and humanity. Feel-
ing that, where the magistrate would fail, the teacher may
succeed, the Emperor is opening schools in his Eastern prov-
inces, under the care of Professor Ilminski, a learned Rus-
sian, holding the chair of Tartar languages and literature in
the university of Kazan. These schools already number
twenty four, of which the one near Kazan is the chief and
model.

Professor Ilminski drives me over to these Tartar schools.
We visit a school for boys and a school for girls; for the
sexes are kept apart, in deference to Oriental notions about
the female sex. The rooms are clean and well kejit ; the chil-
dren neat in dress, and orderly in manner. They are taught
by young priests especially trained for the oflice, and learn to
sing, as well as to read and cipher. Books are printed for
them in Russian type, and a Tartar press is working in con-
nection with the university. This printing of books, especial-
ly of the Psalms and Gospels, in the Tartar tongue, is doing
much good ; for the natives of Kazan are a pushing and in-
quisitive people, fond of reading and singing ; and the poor-
est people are glad to have good books brought to their doors,
in a speech that every one can hear and judge for himself.
In the same spirit the Emperor has ordered mass to be said

Islam. 329

\

in the Tartar tongue ; a wise and thoughtful step ; a hint,
it may be, to the moUahs, who have not come to see, and
never may come to see, that any other idioms than Arabic
and Persian should be used in their mosques. If these
clever traders and craftsmen of Kazan are ever to be convert-
ed from Islam to Christianity, they must be drawn over in
these gentle ways, and not by the jailer's whip and the Ko-
zak's brand.

The children sing a psalm, their bright eyes gleaming at
the sound. They sing in time and tune; but in a fierce,
marauding style, as though the anthem were a bandit's stave.

Not much fruit has yet been gathered from this field.
"Have you any converts from the better classes?" "No;
not yet," the professor sighs ; " the citizens of Kazan are
hard to win ; but we get some little folk from villages on the
steppe, and train them up in the fear of God. Once they are
with us, the yean never turn back."

Such is the present spirit of the law. A Moslem may be-
come a Christian ; a Christian may not become a Moslem ;
and a convert who has taken upon himself the cross can never
legally lay it down. It is an Eastern, not a Western rule ;
and while it remains in force, the cross will be denied the use
of her noblest arms. Not until conscience is left to work in
its own way, as God shall guide it, free from all fear of what
the police may rule, will the final victory lie with the faith of
Christ.

Shi x\bu Din, chief mollah of Kazan, receives me in Asiatic
fashion ; introduces me to two bi'other mollahs, licensed to
travel as merchants ; and leads me over the native colleges
and schools. This mollah, born in a village near Kazan, Was
sent to the university of Bokhara, in which city he was train-
ed for his labors among the Moslems living on Russian soil,
just as our Puritan clergy used to seek their education in
Holland, our Catholic clergy in Spain. Shi Abu Din is con-
sidered, even by the Professor of Tartar languages, as a learn-
ed and upright man. His swarthy brethren have just arrived
from Bokhara, by way of the Kirghiz Steppe. They tell me
the roads are dangerous, and the countries lying east of the
Caspian Sea disturbed. Still the roads, though closed to the
Russians, are open to caravan merchants, if they know the

330 Free Russia.

dialects and ways of men. No doubt they are open to raol-
lahs travelling with caravans through friendly tribes.

The Tartars of Kazan are, of course, polygamists ; so that
their social life is as much unlike the Russian as their re-
ligious life.

CHAPTER LXII.

THE VOLGA.

From Kazan to the Caspian Sea, the Volga flows between
Islam and Christendom. One small town, Samara, has been
planted on the eastern bank — a landing-place for Orenburg
and the Kirghiz Steppe. All other towns — Simbirsk, Volsk,
Saratof, Tsaritzin — rise on the western bank, and look across
the river towards the Ural Ridge. Samara is a Kirghiz, rath-
er than a Russian town, and but for the military posts, and
the traffic brought along the military roads, the place would
be wholly in Moslem hands. Samara has a name in the East
as a place for invalids — the cui'e being wrought by means of
fermented mare's milk, the diet and medicine of rovers on the
Tartar Steppe.

A Christian settlement of the Volga line from Kazan to the
Caspian Sea must be a work of time. Three hundred and
seventeen years have passed since Ivan the Terrible stormed
Kazan; three hundred and twelve years since his armies cap-
tured Astrakhan and opened a passage through Russia to the
Caspian Sea ; yet the Volga is a frontier river to this very
hour ; and it is not too much to say that the noblest water-
course in Europe is less familiar to English merchants in
Victoria's time than it was in Elizabeth's time.

The first boats which sailed the Volga, from her upper wa-
ters to her mouth, were laden with English goods. So soon
as Challoner found a way up the Dvina, a body of merchants
formed themselves into a society for discovering unknown
lands, and this body of London merchants was the means of
opening up Eastern Russia to the world.

The man who first struck the Volga was Anthony Jenkin-
son, agent of these discoverers, who brought out a cargo of

The Volga. 331

cottons and kerseys, ready dyed and dressed, of lead and tin
for roofing churchesj and a vast assortment of pewter j^ots ;
all of which his masters in London expected hira to exchange
for the gums and silks, the gold and pearls, of mythical Cath-
ay. Coming from the Frozen Sea, he noticed with a trader's
eye that the land through which he j^assed was rich in hides,
in fish, in salt, in train-oil, in furs, in pitch, and timber ; while
it was poor in many other things besides cotton shirts and
pewter pots. Sailing up the Dvina to Vologda, he noted that
town as a place for future trade ; crossed the water-shed of
Central Russia to Jaroslav and Moscow ; dropped down the
river Oka ; and fell into the Volga at Nijni, the only town in
which trade was being done, until he reached the Caspian
Sea. The Volga banks were overrun by Tartar hordes, who
took their spoil from every farm, and only spared the towns
from fear. In ten wrecks his rafts reached Astrakhan, where
he saw, to his great surprise and joy, the riches of Persia and
Bokhara lying about in the bazars in heaps ; the alum, galls,
and spices ; the gems and fiUgrees, the shawls and bands,
w*hich he knew would fetch more in the London markets than
their weight in gold. By hugging the northern.shores of the
Caspian Sea, he made the port of Mangishlak, in the Khanate
of Khiva, early in autumn ; and hiring from the natives a thou-
sand camels, he loaded these patient beasts with his pots and
pans, his sheetings and shirtings, and marched by the caravan
road over the Tamdi Kuduk to Khiva, and thence across the
range of Shiekh Djeli, and along the skirts of the great desert
of Kizil Kum to Bokhara, near the gates of which he encamped
on the day before Christmas-eve. There, to his grief, he learn-
ed that the caravan road farther east was stopped, in conse-
quence of a war between tribes in the hill country of Turkestan ;
and after resting in the city of Bokhara for some weeks, he gave
up his project, and, turning his face to the westward, return-
ed to Moscow and London by the roads w^hich he had found.
Three years later he was again in Moscow, chaffering with
raftsmen for a voyage to the Caspian Sea. Queen Bess was
now on the throne, and Jenkinson bore a letter from his sov-
ereign to the Tsar, suggesting the benefits of trade and inter-
course between his people and the society ; and asking for his
kingly help in opening up his towns and ports.

332 Free Russia.

Ivan the Terrible was quick to perceive how much his
power might be increased by the arts and arms which these
strangers could bring him in their ships. Like Peter the
Great in his genius for war, Ivan was only too weU aware
that, in comparison with the Swedes and Poles, his people
were savages; and that his troops, though brave as wolves
and hardy as bears, were still no match for such armies as the
Baltic powers could send into the field. The glory of his
early triumphs in the East and South had been dimmed by
defeats inflicted upon him by his civilized enemies, the Poles ;
and the conquests of Kazan, Siberia, and Astrakhan, were all
but forgotten in the reverses of his later years. He wanted
ships, he wanted guns ; the best of which, he had heard, could
be bought for money in Elizabeth's ports, and brought to the
Dvina in English ships. lie was too great a savage to read
the queen's letter in the way she wished ; he cared no whit for
maps, and could not bend his mind to the sale of hemp and
pewter pots ; but he saw in the queen's letter, which was ad-
dressed to him as Tsar, a recognition of the rank he had as-
sumed, and the offer of a connection which he hoped to turn
into a politioal alliance of the two powers.

While Ivan was weaving his net of policy, the English rafts
were dropping down the Volga, towards Astrakhan, through
hordes of Tartar horse. From Astrakhan they coasted the
Caspian towards the south, landed at the port of Shabran,
and, passing over the Georgian Alps, rode on camels through
Shemaka and Ardabil, to Kasbin, then a residence of the Per-
sian Shah. To him the queen had also sent a letter of friend-
ship, and Jenkinson proposed to draw the great lines of Per-
sian traffic by the Caspian and the Volga, to Archangel ; con-
necting London and Kasbin by a near, a cheap, and an easy
road ; passing through the counti'ies of a single prince, a nat-
ural ally of the Shah and of the Queen, instead of through the
territories and waters of the Turk — the Venetian, the Al-
maigne, and the Dutch. The scheme was bold and new ; of
vast importance to the Russ, who had then no second outlet
to the sea. But the Shah had just made peace with his ene-
my the Sultan, which compelled him to restore the ancient
course of trade between the East and West.

Four years later, William Johnson, also an agent of the so-

The Volga. 333

ciety, was sent from Archangel to Kasbin, with orders to
make a good map of the River Volga and the Caspian Sea,
and to build an English factory at Astrakhan for the Persian
and Chinese trade. The Dvina was also studied and laid
down, and the countries dividing her upper waters from the
Volga were explored. A track had been worn by the natives
from Vologda, one of the antique towns of Moscovy, famous
for bells and candles, to Jaroslav, on the Volga ; and along
this track it was possible to transport the bales and boxes of
English goods. This line was now laid down for the Persian
and Oriental trade to follow, and factories were built in con-
venient spots along the route; the headquarters being fixed
at Archangel and Astrakhan.

The Tsar sent home by Jenkinson not only a public letter
to the queen, in which he asked her to send him cannon and
shijDS, with men who could sail them ; but a secret and verbal
message, in which he proposed to make such a treaty of peace
and aUiance with her as that they should have the same
friends and the same foes ; and that if either of the two rulers
should have need to quit his states, he might retire with safe-
ty and honor into those of the other. To the first he received
no answer, and when Jenkinson returned to Russia on his
trade affairs, the Tsar, who thought he had not delivered his
message M^ord for word, received him coldly, and ill-used the
merchants in his empire ; on which Thomas Randolph, a wily
and able minister, was sent from London to pacify the tyrant,
and protect our countrymen from his rage. But Randolph
was treated worse than all ; for on his arrival at Moscow, he
was not only refused an audience, but placed in such custody
that every one saw he was a prisoner. The letters sent to
him by the queen were kept back, and those which he wrote
to her were opened and returned. After eight months were
passed in these insults, he Avas called to Vologda, received by
the Tsar, and commanded to quit the Russian soil. So much
insolence was used, that he was told by one of the boyars if
he were not quick in going they would pitch his baggage out-
of-doors.

Yet Randolph, patient and experienced, kept his temper,
and when he left the Tsar he had a commercial charter in his
trunk, and a special agent of Ivan in his train. This agent,

334 Feee Eussia.

Andrew Grcgorivitch, bore a letter to the queen (in Russ),in
which he j^rayed her to sign a treaty of war and peace against
all the world, and to grant him an asylum in her realm in case
he should be driven from his own. Andrew found that the
queen could make no treaty of the kind, though she was ready
to promise his master an asylum in her states, where he might
pi-actise his own religion, and live at his own expense. He
then gave ear to an imijostor named Eli Bomel, a native of
Wesel, whom he found in an English jail. This wretch, who
professed to work by magic and the stars, proposed to go
with Andrew to Russia and serve the Tsar. The agent asked
for a pardon, and took him out to Moscow, where he soon
became master in the tyrant's house. For Bomel made the
Tsar believe that the queen, whom he described as a young and
lovely virgin, was in love with him, and could be brought by
sorcery to accept an offer of his hand and throne. The Tsar,
who Avas past his prime, and feeble in health and power, never
tired of doing honor to the man who jiromised him an alli-
ance which would raise him above the proudest emj^erors and
kings.

Horsey, following Randolph to Russia, saw the end of this
wizard. When the Tsar found out that Bomel Avas deceiving
him with lies, and that the queen would not write to him ex-
cept on questions of trade, he sent for his favorite, laid him on
the rack, drew his legs out of their sockets, flayed him with
wire whips, roasted him before a fire, drew him on a sledge
through the snow, and pitched him into a dungeon, where he
was left to die.

Traders poured into Russia, through the line now opened
from the Dvina to the Volga, stores of dyed cotton, copper
pots and pans, sheets of lead rolled up for use, and articles in
tin and iron of sundry sorts. Thomas Bannister and Geoffrey
Ducket reached Jaroslav early in July, and, loading a fleet of
rafts, dropped down the Volga to Astrakhan, where they staid
six weeks in daily ^^eril of their lives. The Turks, now friends
with the Persians, were trying to recover that city, with the
low countries of the Volga, from the Christian Russ ; and the
traders could not put to sea until the Moslem forces were
drawn off. They put into Shabran, where they left their ship
and crossed the mountains on camels to Shemaka, where they

The Volga. 335

staid for the winter. Not before April could tliey venture
to take the road. They pushed on to Ardabil, where they be-
gan to trade, while Bannister went on to Kasbin and procured
a charter of commerce from the Shah. Only one objection
was raised at Kasbin ; Bannister wished to send horses through
the Shah's dominions into India ; but an article which he had
inserted in his paper to this effect was left out by the Persian
scribes. The successful trader sickened near Shemaka and
died ; leaving the command of his adventure to Ducket, who
gathered up the goods for which they had exchanged their
cloth and hardware, crossed the mountahis to Shabran, and
put to sea. Storm met them in the teeth ; they rolled and
tumbled through the waves; and after buffeting the winds
for twenty days, they anchored in shallow water, where they
w^ere suddenly attacked by a horde of Moslem rievers, and
after a gallant fight were overcome by superior strength.
The Tartars pulled them from their ship, of which they made
a prize, and, putting them into their own cutter, let them drift
to sea. The cargo lost was worth no less than forty thousand
pounds — a quarter of a million in our present coin.

At Astrakhan, which they reached in safety, they made
some efforts to recover from the brigands part of what they
had lost, and by the general's helj) some trifles were recovered
from the wreck; but this salvage was lost once more in
ascending the Volga, on which their boat was crushed by a
ridge of ice. Every thing on board went down, and the grim
old tyrant, Ivan the Terrible, sore about his failing suit for
Elizabeth's hand, Avould render them no help.

Ten years elapsed before the traders sent another caravan
across the Geoi-gian Alps, but the road from Archangel to
Astrakhan was never closed again; and for many years to
come the English public heard far more about the Eastern
Steppe than they hear in the present day.

This Eastern Steppe is overrun to-day, as it was overrun in
the time of Ducket, by a tameless rabble of Asiatic tribes.

J36 Fkee Kussia.

CHAPTER LXIII.

EASTER>r STEPPE.

The main attempt to colonize any portion of the Eastern
Stepjie with Christians was the planting of a line of Kozak
camps in the countries lying between the Volga and the Don
— a region in which the soil is less parched, the sand less
deep, the herbage less scanty, than elsewhere in these sterile
plains. But even in this favored region the fight for life is so
hard and constant, that these Kozak colonists hail with joy
the bugles that call them to arm and mount for a distant
raid.

A wide and windy plain, sooty in color, level to the sight,
with thin brown moss, and withered weeds ; a herd of half-
Avild horses here and there ; a Kalmuk rider dashing through a
cloud of dust ; a stray camel ; a wagon drawn by oxen, plough-
ing heavily in the mud and marl ; a hollow, dark and amber, in
which lies a gypsy village ; caravans of carts carrying hay and
melons ; a flock of sheep, watched by a Kozak lad attired in
a fur cap, a skin capote, and enormous boots ; a windmill on
a lonely ridge ; a mighty arch of sky overhead, shot with
long lines of green and crimson light — such is an evening pic-
ture of the Eastern Steppe.

Time out of mind two hostile forces have been flowing
from the deserts of Central Asia through this Eastern Steppe
towards the fertile districts watered by the Don. These
forces are the Turkish and Mongolian tribes. A cloud hangs
over the earlier movements of these tribes ; but when the in-
vaders come under European ken, they are seen to be divided
by differences of type and creed. The Turkish races rank
among the handsomest on earth, the Mongolian races rank
among the ugliest on earth. The Turkish tribes are children
of Mohammed, the Mongolian tribes are children of Buddha.
The first are a settled people, living in towns, and tilling the
soil; the second a nomadic people, dwelling in tents, and
roving from plain to plain with their flocks and herds.

Eastern Steppe. 837

The Moslem hordes which crossed the Ural River settled
on the steppe, built cities on the Volga and the Donets,
pushed their conquests up to the gates of Kief. The Bud-
dhistic hordes which fought under Batu Khan destroyed this
earlier work; but when they settled on the steppe, and mar-
ried Moslem women, many of these heirs of Batu Khan em-
braced the religion of their wives, and helped the True Be-
lievers to erect such cities in their rear as Khiva, Bokhara,
Samarcand, and Balkh, which afterwards became the strong-
holds of their faith. Yet most of the IMongol princes held
by .their ancient creed, and all the new-comers from their
country added to their strength on this Eastern Steppe.
These Turks and Mongols, enemies in Asia, kejit up their
feuds in Europe ; and the early Moslem settlers in these
plains were sorely pressed by their Buddhistic rulers, until
the arrival of Timour Beg restored the Crescent to its old
supremacy on the Eastern Steppe.

This feud between Buddha and Mohammed led in these
countries to the final triumphs of the Cross.

The plains on which they fought for twenty generations
are even now tented and cropped by Asiatic tribes — Kalmuks,
Kirghiz, Nogays, Gypsies. The Kalmuks are Buddhists, the
Kirghiz and Nogays are Moslem, the Gypsies are simply
G}q5sies.

The Kalmuks, a pastoral and warlike people, never yet con-
fined in houses, are the true proprietors of the steppe. But
they have given it up, at least in part ; for in the reign of
Empress Catharine, five hundred thousand wanderers crossed
the Ural River, never to come back. The Kirghiz, Turko-
mans, and Nogays came in and occupied their lands.

The Kalmuks who remain in tlie country live in corrals
(temporary camps), formed by raising a number of lodges
near each other, round the tent of their high-priest. A
Kalmuk lodge is a frame of poles set up in the form of a
ring, tented at the top, and hung with coarse brown cloth.
Inside, the ground is covered with skins and furs, on which
the inmates lounge and sleep. Ten, twenty, fifty persons of
all ages live under a common roof. A savage is not afraid of
crowding ; least of all Avhen he lies down at night. Crowds
comfort him and keep him warm. A flock of sheep, a string

22

338 Free Russia.

of camels, and a lievd of horses, browse around the corral ;
for horses, sheep, and camels are the only wealth of tribes
who plant no tree, who build no house, who sow no field.
Flat in feature, bronze in color, bony in frame, the Kalmuk
is one of the ugliest types of living men, though he is said to
produce, by mixture with the more flexible and feminine
llindoo, the splendid face and figure of the Circassian chief.

The Kalmuk, as a Buddhist, keeping to his ancient Mongol
traditions, and worshipping the Dalai-Lama, eats bull beef
but slightly cooked, and drinks mare's milk in his favorite
forms of kumis and spirit; the first being milk fermented
only, the second milk fermented and distilled. Like all his
race, he will steal a cow, a camel, or a horse, from either
friend or foe, whenever he finds his chance. He owes no
allegiance, he knows no law. Some formal acts of obedience
are expected from him ; such as paying his taxes, and sup-
plying his tale of men for the ranks ; but these payments and
supplies are nominal only, save in districts where the rover
has settled down under Kozak rule.

These wild men come and go as they list, roving with their
sheep and camels from the wall of China to the countries
watered by the Don. They come in hordes, and go in armies.
In the reign of Michael Romanoff fifty thousand Kalmuks
poured along the Eastern Steppe; and these unwelcome
guests were afterwards strengthened by a second horde of
ten thousand tents. These Kalmuks treated with Peter the
Great as an independent power, and for several generations
they paid no tribute to the crown except by furnishing cav-
alry in time of war. Another horde of ten thousand tents
arrived. Their prince, Ubasha, led an army of thirty thou-
sand horsemen towards the Danube against the Turks, whom
they hated as only Asiatics hate hereditary foes. Yet, on the
Empress Catharine trying to place the hordes under rule and
law, the same Ubasha led his tribes — five hundred thousand
souls, with countless herds of cattle, camels, and horses — back
from the Eastern Steppe across the Ural River into Asia;
stripping whole provinces of their wealth, producing famine
in the towns, and robbing the emjDire of her most powerful
arm. Hurt in his pride by some light word from the im-
perial lips, the prince proposed to carry off all his people.

Easteex Steppe. 339

leaving not a soul behind; but fifteen thousand tents were
left, because the winter came down late, and the Volga ice
was thin. The children of these laggers are the men you
meet on the plains, surprise at their religious rites, and sup
with iu their homely tents. Steps have been often taken to
reclaim and fix these rovers, but Avith little or no effect.
Some families have joined the Kozaks, come under law, and
even embraced the cross ; but the vast majority cling to their
wild life, their Asiatic dress, and their Buddhistic creed.

The upper classes are called White (literally, Avhite bones),
the lower classes Black, just as in Asiatic fashion the Rus-
sian nobles are called White, while the peasants are called
Black.

The Kirghiz are of Turkish origin, and speak the Uzbek
idiom of their race. Divided into three branches, called the
Great Horde, the Middle Horde, and the Little Horde, they
roam over, if they do not own, the steppes and deserts lying
between the Volga and Lake Balkash. Much of this tract is
sandy waste, with dots of herbage here and there, and most
of it lies beyond the Russian lines. Within these lines some
order may be kept ; beyond them, in what is called the Inde-
pendent Steppe, the Kirghiz devilry finds an open field.
These children of the desert plunder friend and foe, not only
lifting cattle and robbing caravans, but stealing men and
women to sell as slaves. All through these deserts, from
Fort Aralsk to Daman-i-koh, the slave-trade is in vogue ;
the Kirghiz bandits keejung the markets of Khiva and
Bokhara well supplied with boys and girls for sale. Nor is
the traffic likely to decline until the flag of some civilized peo-
ple floats from the Tower of Timour Beg. Fired by heredi-
tary hate, these Kirghiz bandits look on every man of Mono-o-
lian birth and Buddhistic faith as lawful spoil. They follow
him to his pastures, plunder his tent, drive off his herds, and
sell him as a slave. But when this lawful prey escapes their
hands they raid and rob on more fi-iendly soil ; and many of
the captives whom they carry to Khiva and Bokhara come
from the Persian valleys of Atrek and Meshid. Girls from
these valleys fetch a higher price, and Persia has not strength
enough to protect her children from their raids.

When Ubasha fled from the Volga with his Kalmuk hosts,

3-iO Free Kussia.

tliese Kirghiz had a year of sweet revenge. They lay in wait
for their retiring foes ; they broke upon their camps by night ;
they stole their horses ; they devoured their food ; they car-
ried off their -women. Hanging on the flank and rear of this
moving mass, they cut off stragglers, stopped communica-
tions, hid the wells ; inflicting far more miseries on the Kal-
muks than these rovers suffered from all the generals sent
against them by the crown.

These Kalmuks gone, the Kirghiz crossed the borders and
appeared on the Volga, where they have been well received.
Their khan is rich and powerful, and in coming in contact with
Europe he has learned to value science ; but the attempts
which have been made to settle some portions of his tribe at
Ryn Peski have met with no success. The Emperor has
built a house for the khan, but the khan himself, preferring
to live out-of-doors, has pitched his tent on the lawn ! A
Bedouin of the desert is not more untamable than a Kirghiz
of the steppe.

The Nogays are Mongolians of a separate horde. Coming
into the country with Jani Beg, they spread themselves through
the southern plains, took wives of the people, and embraced
the Mussulman faith. At first they were a nomadic soldiery,
living in camps ; and even after the war had died out, they
kept to their wagons, and roamed through the country as the
seasons came and went. " We live on wheels," they used to
say : " one man has a house on the ground, another man has
a house on wheels. It is the will of God." Yet, in the
course of five hundred years, these Nogays have in some
measure changed their habits of life, though they have not
changed their creed. Many of them are settlers on the land,
which they farm in a rough style ; growing millet, grapes,
and melons for their daily food. Being strict Mohammed-
ans, they drink no wine, and marry two or three wives apiece.
All wives are bought with money ; and divorce, though easy
to obtain, is seldom tried. The men are proud of their de-
scent and their rehgion, and the crown allows their cadis and
mollahs to settle most of their disputes. They pay a tax, but
they are not enrolled for war.

These Mongolians occupy the Russian Steppe between the
Molochnaya River and the Sea of Azof.

Don Kozaks. 341

The Gypsies, here called Tsiganie, live a nomadic life iu the
Eastern Steppe, as in other countries, sleeping iu wretched
tents of coarse brown cloth, and grovelling like dogs and
swine in the mire. They own a few carts, and ponies to
match the carts, in which they carry their waves and little
folk from fair to fair, stealing poultry, telling fortunes, shoe-
ing horses, and existing only from hand to mouth. They
will not labor— they will not learn. Some Gy|3sies show a
talent for music, and many of their girls have a beauty of
person which is highly prized. A few become public sing-
ers ; and a splendid specimen of her race may marry— like
the present Princess Sergie Golitsin of Moscow— into the
highest rank ; but as a race they live apart, in true Asiatic
style ; reiving and prowling on their neighbors' farms, beg-
ging at one house, thieving at the next ; a class of outlaws,
objects of fear to many, and of disgust to all. In summer
they lodge on the grass, in winter they burrow in the ground ;
taking no more thought of the heat and dew than of the frost
and snow. In color they are almost bronze, Avith big fierce
eyes and famished looks, as though they were the embodied
life of the dirt iu which they wallow by day and dream by
night. Some efforts have been made by Government to civ-
ilize these mysterious tribes, but hitherto without results ;
and the marauders are only to be kept in check on the East-
ern Steppe by occasional onsets of Kozak horse.

CHAPTER LXIV.

DON KOZAKS.

Since the flight of their countrymen under Ubasha, the
Kalmuks have been closely pressed by their Moslem foes.

Their chief tormentors came from the Caucasus ; from the
hills of which countries, Nogays and Turkomans, eternal ene-
mies of their race and faith, descended on their pasture lands,
drove out their sheep and camels, broke up their corrals, and
insulted their religious rites. No government could prevent
these raids, except by following the raiders home. But then.

342 Free Eussia.

these Nogays and Turkomans Avere independent tribes ; their
homes were built on the heights beyond the Russian lines ;
and the necessities under which Russia lay — first, to protect
her own plains from insult ; next, to preserve the peace be-
tween these Buddhists and Moslems, gave her a better excuse
for occupying the hill-countries in her front than the sympa-
thy felt in high quarters for the Georgian Church. Pressed
by these enemies, some of the Kalmuks have appealed to the
crown for help, and have even quitted their camps, and sought
protection within the Kozak lines.

The Kozak camps along the outer and inner frontiers — the
Ural line and the Volga line — are peoi:»led by a mixed race of
Malo-Russians, Kalmuks, and Kirghiz ; but the element that
fuses and connects these rival forces comes from the old free
Ukraine, and is thoroughly Slavonic in creed and race.

A Kozak of the Volga and the Don is not a Russian of
Moscow, but of Novgorod and Kief ; a man who for hun-
dreds of years has held his own. His horse is always sad-
dled ; his lance is always sharp. By day and night his face
is towards the enemy ; his camp is in a state of siege. Com-
pared Avith a Russian of Moscow, the Kozak is a jovial fellow,
heady and ready, prompt in remark, and keen in jest ; his
mouth full of song, his head full of romance, and his heart
full of love.

On the Ural River the Kozak has a little less of the Kal-
muk, a little more of the Kirghiz, in his veins ; but the
Ukraine blood is dominant in both. It would be impossible
for the Kalmuk and Kirghiz to live in peace, if these follow-
ers of the Grand Lama and the Arabian Prophet were not
held in check by the Kozak camps.

First at St. Romanof, afterwards at Cemikarakorskoe, and
other camps on the Don, I find the Kozaks in these camps ;
eat and drink with them, join in their festivals, watch their
dances, hear their national songs, and observe them fight their
fights. An aged story-teUer comes into my room at St. Ro-
manof to spin long yarns about Kozak daring and adventure
in the Caucasian wars. I notice, as a peculiarity of these
gallant recitals, that the old warrior's stories turn on practices
and stratagems, never on open and manly fights ; the tricks
by which a picket was misled, a village captured, a caravan

Don Kozaks. 843

cut off, a heap of booty won. As the old man speaks of a
farm-yard entered, of a herd of cows surprised, his face will
glDani with a sudden joy ; and then the younkers listening to
his tale will clap their hands and stamp their feet, impatient
to mount their stallions and ride away. "When he tells of
harems forced and mosques profaned, the Kalmuks who are
present color and pant Avith Asiatic glee.

These Kozaks live in villages, composed of houses and gar-
dens built in a kind of maze ; the houses thatched Avith straw,
the Avails painted yellow, and a ring-fence running round the
cluster of habitations, Avith an opening only at two or three
points. The ins and outs are difficult ; the passages guarded
by savage dogs ; the Avhole camp being a pen for the cattle as
Avell as a fortress for the men. A church, of no great size and
splendor, springs from the highest mound in the hamlet; for
these Kozaks of the Eastern Steppe are nearly all attached to
the ancient Slavonic rite. A flock of sheep is baa-ing on the
steppe, a train of carts and oxen moving on the road. A
fowler crushes through the herbage Avith his gun. On every
side Ave see some evidence of life ; and if the plain is still dark
and bare, the Kozak love of garden, fence, and color lends a
charm to the Southern country never to be seen in the North.

A thousand souls are camped at St. Romanof, in a rude
hamlet, Avith the usual paint and fence. Each house stands
by itself, Avith its own yard and garden, vines, and melon-beds,
guarded by a savage dog. The type is Malo-Russ, the com-
plexion yelloAV and Tartar-like ; the teeth are very fine, the
eyes are burning Avith hidden fire. Men and boys all ride,
and CA'ery child appears to possess a horse. Yet half the men
are nursing babies, Avhile the Avomen are doing the heavier
kinds of Avork. A superstition of the steppe accounts for the
fact of half these men carrying infants in their arms, the naked
brats pressed closely beneath their coats. They think that
unless a father nurses his first-born son his Avife Avill die of
the second child ; and as a Avoman costs so many cows and
horses, it is a serious thing — apart from his affections — for a
man on the Eastern Steppe to lose his Avife.

No smoking is allowed in a Kozak cam]->, for dread of fire ;
though my host at Cemikarakorskoe smokes himself, and in-
vites his guests to smoke. Outside the fence the Avomen are

344 Free Eussia.

frying melons and making wine — a strong and curious liquor,
thick as treacle, with a finer taste. It is an ancient custom,
lost, except on the Don. A plain church, with a lofty belfry,
adorns the camp; but a majority of the Kozaks being Old
Believers, the camp may be said to absent itself from mass.
These rough fellows, ready as they seem for raiding and
thieving, are just now overwhelmed with sorrow on account
of their church affairs !

Their bishoj). Father Plato, has been seized in his house at
Novo Cherkask, and sent u^j the Don to Kremenskoe, a con-
vent near Kalatch. A very old man, he has now been two
years a prisoner in that convent; and no one in the camp can
learn the natui*e of his offense. The Kozaks bear his trouble
with saddened hearts and flashing eyes ; for these colonists
look on the board of Black Clergy sitting in St. Isaac's Square,
not only as a conclave going beyond its functions, but as the
Chert, the Black One, the incarnate Evil Spirit.

Cemikarakorskoe is a chief camp or town on the Lower
Don. " How many souls have you in camp ?" I ask my host,
as we stroll about. " We do not know ; our folk don't relish
counting ; but we have always five hundred saddles ready
in the stalls." The men look wild, but they are gradually
taming down. Fine herds of cattle dot the jDlains beyond
their fence, and some of the families sow fields of corn and
maize. They grow abundance of purple grapes, from which
they press a strong and sparkling wine. My host puts on
his table a vintage as good as Asti ; and some folk say the
vineyards of the Don are finer than those of the Garonne and
the Marne !

These Kozaks have soil enough to grow their food, and fill
the markets with their surplus. No division of land has
taken place for thirty-two years. A plain extends in front
as far as the eye can reach ; it is a common jDroj^erty, and
every man can take what he likes. The poorest fellows have
thirty acres apiece. In their home affairs, these colonists are
still a state within the state. Their hetman has been abolish-
ed ; their grand ataman is the crown prince ; but his work is
wholly nominal, and they elect their own atamans and judges
for a limited term. Every one is eligible for the office of
local ataman — a colonel of the camp, who commands the vil-

Don Kozaks. 345

lage in peace and war; but he must not leave his quarters
for the whole of his three years. An officer is sent from St.
Petersburg to drill and command the troops. Every one is
eligible as judge — an officer who tries all cases under forty
rubles of account, and, like an ataman, the judge may not
quit his village even in time of Avar.

A great reform is taking place among these camps. All
officers above the rank of ataman and judge are now appoint-
ed by the crown, as such men are in every branch of the pub-
lic force. An ataman-general resides with an effective stafE
at Novo Cherkask, a town lying back from the Don, in a po-
sition to guard against surprise — a town with streets and
houses, and with thoroughfares lit by lamps instead of being
watched by savage dogs. But Xovo Cherkask is a Russian
city, not a Kozak camp ; the ataman-general is a Russian sol-
dier, not a Kozak chief ; and the object kept in view at Xovo
Cherkask is that of safely and steadily bringing these old mil-
itary colonists on the Eastern Steppe under the action of im-
perial law.

But such a change must be a work of time. General Pota-
poff, the last ruler in Novo Cherkask, a man of high talents,
fell to his work so fast that a revolt seemed likely to occur
along the whole line of the Don. On proof that he was
not the man for such a post, this general was promoted to
Vilna, as commander-in-chief in the fourth military district ;
while General Chertkoff, an old man of conservative views,
was sent down from St. Petersburg to soothe the camps and
keep things quiet in the steppe. The Emperor made a little
joke on his officers' names : — " After the flood, the devil ;"
Potap meaning deluge, and Chert the Evil One ; and when
his brave Kozaks had laughed at the jest, every thing fell
back for a time into the ancient ruts.

Of course, in a free Russia all men must be put on an equal
footing before the law, and Kozak privilege must go the way
that every other privilege is going. Yet where is the class
of men that willingly gives up a sj^ecial right ?

A Kozak is a being slow to change ; and a prince who has
to keep his eye fixed day and night on these Eastern steppes,
and on the cities lying beyond them, Khiva and Bokhara, out
of which have come from age to aare those rolling swarms of

34:Q Free Kussia.

savage tribes, can hardly be expected, even in the cause of uni-
form laAv, to break his lines, of defense, and drive Lis faithful
pickets into open revolt against liis rule.

CHAPTER LXV.

UNDER ARMS.

Ax army is in every state, vi^hether bond or free, a thing of
privilege and tradition ; and in giving a new spirit to his
Government, it is essential that the Emperor should bring his
army into some closer relation to the country he is making
free.

The first thing is to raise the profession of .arms to a higher
grade, by giving to every soldier in the ranks the old privilege
of a prince and boyar — his immunity from blows and stripes.
A soldier can not now be flogged. Before the present reign,
the army was in theory an open school of merit, and occasion-
ally a man like General Skobeleff rose from the rank of peas-
ant to the highest posts. But Skobeleff was a man of genius —
a good writer, as well as a splendid soldier ; and his nomina-
tion as commander of St. Petersburg took no one by surprise.
Such cases of advancement are extremely rare ; rare as in the
Austrian service, and in our own. But the reforms now in-
troduced into the army are making this opening for talent
wide enough to give every one a chance. The soldiers are
better taught, better clothed, and better lodged. In distant
provinces they are not yet equal to the show-troops seen on a
summer day at Tsarskoe Seloe ; but they are lodged and treat-
ed, even in these far-off stations, with a care to which afore-
time they were never used. Every man has a pair of strong
boots, a good overcoat, a bashlik for his head. His rations
are much improved ; good beef is weighed to him ; and he is
not compelled to fast. The brutal punishment of running the
ranks has been put down.

A man who served in the army, just before the Crimean
"war broke out, put the difference between the old system
and the new in a luminous way.

Under Arms. 347

" God bless the Emperor," lie said ;" " lie gave me life, and
all that I can give him in return is his."

" You Avere a prisoner, then ?"

" I was a soldier, young and hot. Some Kozak blood was
in my veins ; unlike the serfs, I could not bear a blow, and
broke my duty as a soldier to escape an act of shame."

" For what were you degraded ?"

" Well ! I was a fool. A fool? I was in love ; and staked
my liberty for a pretty girl. I kissed her, and was lost."

"That is what the greatest conquerors have done. You
lost yourself for a rosy lip?"

" Well — yes ; and — no," said Michael. " You see, I was a
youngster then. A man is not a graybeard when he counts
his nineteen summers ; and a pair of bright eyes, backed by a
saucy tongue, is more than a lad of spirit can pass without a
singe. Katinka's eyes were bright as her Avords were arch.
You see, in those days Ave Avere all young troops on the road ;
going doAvn from Yaroslav into the South, to fight for the Holy
Cross and the Golden Keys. The Frank and Turk were com-
ing up into our tOAvns, to mock our religion and to steal our
Avives ; and after a great festa in the Church, when the golden
icon Avas brought round the ranks, and every man kissed it in
his turn, we marched out of Yaroslav Avith rolling drums, and
pious hymns, and blessings on our arms. The tOAvn soon drop-
ped behind us, and Avith the steppe in front, Ave turned back
more than once to look at the shining domes and towers,
Avhich few of us could hope to see again. For three days Ave
kept well on ; the fourth day some of our lads were missing ;
for the roads were heaAy, the Avells Avere almost dry, and the
regiment Avas badly shod. Many Avere sick ; but some Avere
feigning; and the punishment for shamming is the rod. Our
colonel, a tall, gaunt fellow, stiff as a pike and tight as a cord,
whom no fatigue could touch, began to flog the stragglers ;
and as every man in the ranks had to take his turn in Avliip-
ping his felloAvs, the temper of the Avhole regiment became
morose and savage. In those old times — some eighteen years
ago — we had a rough-and-ready sort of punishment, called
running the ranks."

" Running the ranks ?"

" It is done so : if a lad has either fallen asleep on his post,

848 Free Eussia.

or vexed his officer, or stolen his comrade's pipe, or failed to
answer at the roll, he is called to the parade-ground of his
company, told to give np his gun, and strip himself naked to
the waist. A soldier grounds the musket, to which the cul-
l^rit's two hands are now tied fast near the muzzle ; the bay-
onet is then fixed, and the butt-end lifted from the ground so
as to bring the point of the bayonet close to the culprit's
heart. The company is then drawn up in two long lines, in
iopen order; and into every man's hand is given a rod newly
cut and steeped for a night in water to make it hard. The
offender is led between these lines ; led by the butt-end of
his gun, the shghtest motion of which he must obey, on pain
of being pricked to death ; and the troops lay on his naked
back, with a will or not, as their mood may chance to be.
The pain is always great, and the sufferer dares not shrink
before the rod ; as in doing so he would fall on the bayonet-
point. But the shame of running the ranks was greater than
the pain. Some fellows learned to bear it ; but these Avere
men who had lost all sense of shame. For my own part, I
think it was w^orse than death and hell."

" You have not borne it ?"

" Never ! I will tell you. We had marched about a
thousand versts towards the South. Our companies Avere
greatly tliinned ; for every second man who had left Yaroslav
Avith beating heart and singing his joyous psalm, was left be-
hind us, either in the sick-Avard or on the steppe — most of
them on the steppe. Many of the men had run aAvay ; some
because they did not Avant to fight, and others because they
had vexed their officers by petty faults. We had a fortnight
yet to march before reaching those lines of Periko]?, Avhere
the Tartars used to fight us ; and our stiff colonel cried out
daily doAvn our squads, that if Ave skulked on the march the
Turks Avould be in Moscoav, not the Russians at Stamboul."

" Yes !"

" We had a fortnight yet to march ; but the men were so
spent and sore that Ave halted in a roadside village three days
to mend our shoes and recruit our strength. That halt un-
made me. What Avith her laughing eyes and her merry
tricks, the girl who served out whisky and halibut to our
company Avon my heart. Her father kept the inn and post-

Under Arms. 349

ing-house of the village ; he had to find us quarters, and sup-
ply us with meat and drink. The girl was about the sheds
in which we lay from early morning until late at night. I
don't say she cared for me, though I was thought a handsome
lad ; but she was like a wild kitten, and would purr and play
about you till your blood was all on fire ; and into the stable
or the straw-shed, screaming with laughter, and daring you
to chase and capture her — with a kiss, of course. It was
rare good sport ; but some of the men, too broken to engage
in making love, Avere jealous of the fun, and said it would
end in trouble. Well, when the drum tapped for our com-
panies to fall in, my cloak was missing, and I began to hunt
through the shed in which we had slept the last three nights.
The cloak could not be found. While running up and down,
upsetting stools and scattering sheaves of straw, I caught
Katiuka's laughing face at the window of the shed, and at
the very same instant heard the word of command to march.
I had no intention to quit the ranks ; but I wanted my cloak,
the loss of which would have been visited upon me by the
anger of my captain and by the wintry frosts. I ran after
Katinka, "who darted round the sheds with the cloak on her
arm, crowing with delight as she slipped through the stakes
and jjast the corners, imtil she bounded into the straw-yard,
panting and spent. To get the cloak from her was the work
of a second ; but to smother her red mouth with kisses was a
task which must have taken me some time ; for just as I was
getting free from her, two men of my company came up and
took me prisoner. Graybeards of twenty-five, who had seen
what they call the world, these fellows cared no more for a
pretty girl than for a holy saint. They told the colonel lies ; -
they said I meant to straggle and desert; and the colonel
sentenced me to run the ranks."

" You escaped the shame ?"

" By taking ray chance of death. The colonel stood before
me, bolt upright, his hand upon the shoulder of his horse.
Too well I knew how to merit death in a time of war ; and
striding up to him, by a rapid motion, ere any one could pull
me back, I struck that ofiicer with my open palm across his
cheek. A minute later I was pinioned, thrown into a cart,
and placed under a double guard. At Perikop I was brought

350 Free Eussia.

before commissioners and condemned to die ; but the Franks
were now coming np the Bosphorus in ships, and the prince
commanding in the Crimea, being anxious to make tlie war
popular, was in a tender mood ; and finding that my record
in the regiment was good, he changed my sentence of deatli
into one of imprisonment in a fortress during life. My com-
rades thought I should be pardoned in a few weeks and placed
in some other company for service ; but my crime was too
black to be forgiven in that iron reign."

" Iron reign ?"

" The reign of Nicolas was the iron reign. I was sent to a
fortress, where I lay, a prisoner, until Nicolas went to heaven."

" You lived two years in jail ?"

" Lived ! No ; you do not live in prison, you die. But
when the saints are cross you take a very long time to die."

" You wished to die ?"

" "Well, no ; you only wish to sleep, to forget your j^ain, to
escape from the watcher's eyes. When the rings are solder-
ed round your ankles, and the cuffs are fastened round your
wrists, you feel that you have ceased to be a man. Cold,
passive, cruel in your temper, you are now a savage beast,
without the savage freedom of the wolf and bear. Yotir legs
swell out, and the bones grow gritty, and like to snap."

" Which are the worse to bear — the leg-rings or the cuffs ?"

" The cuffs. When they are taken off, a man goes all but
mad. He clasps and claps his hands for joy ; he can lift his
palms in prayer, besides being able to chase the spiders and
kill the fleas. Worst of all to the prisoner are the eyelets
in his door, through which the sentinel watches him from
dawn to dusk. Though lonely, he is never alone. Do what
he may, the passionless holes are open, and a freezing glance
may be fixed upon him. In his sleeping and in his waking
hour those eyes are on him, and he gladly waits for darkness
to come down, that he may feel secure from that madden-
ing watch. Sometimes a man goes boldly to the door, spits
through the holes, yells like a Avild beast, and forces the
sentinel to retire in shame."

" You gained your freedom in the general amnesty ?"

" Yes ; when the young prince came to his throne he open-
ed our prison-doors and set us free. Were you ever a pris-

Alexander. 351

oner ? Xo ! Then you can never know what it is to be free.
You walk out of darkness into hght ; you wake out of misery
into joy. The air you breathe makes you strong like a draught
of wine. You feel that you belong to God."

Under Nicolas the soldiers were so dressed and drilled that
they were always falling sick. A third of the army was in
hospital the Avhole year round, and little more than half the
men could ever be returned as fit to march. Being badly
clothed and poorly fed, they flew to drink. They died in
heaps, and rather like sheep than men.

The case is different now ; for the soldier is better clothed
and fed than persons of his class in ordinary life. The men
are allowed to stand and walk in their natural way ; and, hav-
ing more bread to eat, they show less craving after drink.
A school is opened in every barrack, and pressure is put on
the men to make them learn. Many of the soldiers can read,
and some can write. Gazettes and papers are taken in ; libra-
ries ai*e being formed ; and the Russian array promises to be-
come as bright as that of Germany or France. The change
is great ; and every one finds the root of this reform in that
abolition of the Tartar stick, which comes, like other great re-
forms, from the Crimean war.

CHAPTER LXVI.

ALEXANDER.

TiiEJIilmeaH^wai-restQred the people to their nationaliife.
" Sebastopol !" said a general officer to me just now, " Sebas-
topol perished, that our country might be free." TheJlaiLtar
kingdom, founded by Ivan the Terrible, reformed by Peter
the Great, existed in the spirit, even where it clothed itself in
Western names and forms, until the allies landed from their
transports. Routed on the Alma, beaten at Balaclava, that
kingdom made her final effort on the heights of Inkermann ;
hurling, in Tartar force and fashion, her last " great horde "
across that Baidar valley, in the rocks and caves of which a
remnant of the tribes of Batu Khan and Timour Beu" still

852 Fkee Russia.

lingers ; fighting in mist and fog, on wooded slope and stony-
ridge, her gallant and despairing fight. What followed Inker-
mann was detail only. Met and foiled that wintry day, she
reeled and bled to death. A grave was made for her, as one
may say, not far from the spot on which she fought and fell.
Before the landing-place in Sebastopol sprang the walls and
frowned the guns of an imj)erial fort — the strongest jnle in
Russia, perhaps in Europe ; rising tier on tier, and armed
with two hundred and sixty guns ; a fort in the fire of which
no ship then floating on the sea could live. It bore the build-
er's name — the name of Nicolas, Autocrat of all the Russians ;
a colossal sovereign, who for thirty years had awed and stifled
men like Genghis Khan. That fort became a ruin. The
guns were torn to rags, the walls were shivered into dust. No
stone was left in its place to tell the tale of its former pride ;
and it is even now an easier task to trace the outlines of
Kherson, dead for five hundred years, than to restore, from
what remains of them, the features of that proud, imjDcrial
fort. The jsrince, the fortress, and the kingdom fell ; their
work on earth accomplished to the final act. This ruin is
their grave.

Asiatic Russia passed away, and European Russia struggled
into life.

Holding under the " Great Cham," the Duke of Moscoav
was in ancient times a dei^endent prince, like the Hospodar
of Valachia, like the Pasha of Egypt in modern days. Doing
homage, paying tribute to his Tartar lord, the duke ruled in
Ills place, coined money in his name, adopted his dress and
habits, fought his battles, and took into j)ay his oflicers and
troops. Cities which the Tartar could not reach, his vassal
cruslied.

The Tartar system was a village system, as it is with every
pastoral and jaredatory race ; a village for the followers, and
a camp or residence for the prince. The Russian system was
a mixed system, as it was in Germany and France ; a village
for the husbandman, a town for the boyar, merchant, and pro-
fessional man. The_old_Rjissijui Jto^

ruled by codes of law, by popvalar assemblies, and by elected
dukes. Novgorod, Moscow, Pskoff, Vladimir, Nijni, were
models of a hundred prosperous towns ; but when the Duke

Alexander. 853

of Moscow wrested his independence from the khan in the
seventeenth century, he tnnk npjthe Tartar.]3olicy of weakening
th£ free citieSj and centring all authority in liis_,camp. That
camp was Moscoav^ which Ivan put under martial law, and
governed, in Asiatic fashion, by the stick. The court became
a Tartar court. The dress and manners of Bakchi Serai were
imitated in the Kremlin ; w^omen were put into harems ; the
Tartar distinction of white and black (noble and ignoble) was
established. From the time when the grand dukes became
Tsars they were called White, the peasants Black ; and the
poor of every class, whether they lived in to\^Tis ov villages,
were styled, in contempt, as their Moslem masters- had always
styled them, Christians — bearers of the cross — a name- which
descended to the serfs, and clung to them so long as a serf
existed on Russian soil.

In leaving Moscow, Peter the Great was only acting like
the Crim Tartar who had changed his camp from Eski-Crim
to Bakchi Serai. The camp was his countiy, and where he
rested for a season was his camp. In Old Russia, as in Ger-
many and France, authority was historical ; in Crim-Tartary,
as in Turkey and Bokhara, it was personal. Ivan the Terrible
introduced, and Peter the Great extended, the personal system.
In her better days Russia had a noble class, as well as a citi-
zen class and a peasant class ; but these signs of a glorious
past were gradually put away. " No man is noble in my
empire, unless I make him so," said Peter. " No man is no-
ble in my empire, except when I speak to him, and only while
I si^eak to him," said Paul. The governors of provinces be-
came pashas, with the right of living on the districts they were
sent to rule ; that is to say, of taking from the people meat,
drink, house, dogs, horses, women, at their sovereign will.

Though softened from time to time, here by fine phrases,
there by mystic patriotism, this^ Tartar system lived into the
present reign. Under this system, the prince was every
thing, the people nothing ; the army a horde, the nobility an
official mob, the Church a department of police, the commons
a herd of slaves.

Nicolas prized that system, and being a man of powerful
frame and daring mind, he carried it forward to a point from
which it had been falling back since the reign of Peter the

23

85-i Free Eussia.

Great. Unlike Peter, Nicolas saw no use in Western science
and Western arts. He hated railways, he abhorred the press.
He made his coiu*t a camp ; he dressed his students in uni-
form ; he turned education into drill. He was the State, the
Church, the Army, all in one. Desiring to shut up his empire,
as the Khans of Khiva and Bokhara close their states, he drew
a cordon round his frontier, over which it was nearly as diffi-
cult for a stranger to enter as for a subject to escape ; and
while he occupied the throne, his country was almost as much
a mystery to mankind as the realm of Prester John. With
mystery came distrust, for the unknown is always feared ;
and Europe lay in front of this Tartar prince, exactly as in
former ages Moscow lay before Timour Beg. A system such
as Kicolas loved could not exist in ])resence of free and powei--
TuTstates ; and Europe had to march upon the armies of JN ico-
las, even as Ivan the Terrible had to march upon the troops
oFYediguer Khahl ~~ ~

The sjstem^jw^s Mongoli^n^jiot Slavonic ; and the mighty
sovereign who u^ihelcTitTand [DensTied with'Tt, will be regard-
ed in future ages as the prince who was at once the last Asi-
atic emperor and the last European khan.

When Alexander the Second came to his sceptre, what was
his estate ? His empire was a wreck. The allies were upon
his soil; his ports were closed; his ships were sunk; his
armies were held at bay. Looking from the Neva to the
Thames, lie could not see one friend on whom in his trouble
he could call for help. The system was perfect ; the isolation
was complete. But why had that system, reared at such a
price, collapsed so thoroughly at the point where it seemed to
be most strong ?"

Plis armies counted a million men. Why were these hosts
unable to protect their soil ? They were at home ; they knew
the country ; they were used to its windy plains, its summer
heats, and its wintry snows. They were fighting, too, for ev-
ery thing that men hold dear on earth. When Alexander
compared his million men against the forces of his rivals ac-
tually in the field, his wonder grew into amazement. These
soldiers of his foes were weak in number, far from home, and
fighting only for pride and pay. How were such armies able
to maintain themselves on Russian crround ?

Alexander. 355 •

Before the Emperor Kicolas died, he read the truth — read
it in the light of his burning towns, his wasting armies, and
his fruitless cannonades. He found that he and his million
troops were matched against a hundred millions of eager and
adventurous foes. Free nations were all against him; and
the serf nation which he ruled so sternly was not for him.
Russia was not with him. Here he was weak, with an in-
curable fret and sore. The serfs, the Old Believers, and the
sectaries of every name, were all against him, looking on his
system as a foreign, not to say an abominable thing, and
praying night and day that the hour of their deliverance from
his rule might quickly come. No j)eo2Dle stood behind the
soldiery in his war against the Western Powers.

In spite of genius, valor, enter2:)rise, success, an army fight-
ing for itself, unwarmed by popular applause, is sure in the
end to fail. The discovery that he and his troops were fight-
ing against the world of free thought and liberal science killed
hini. When the blow was dealt, and his pride was gone,
"ITicolas is said to have confided to his son Alexander the
causes ot liis tailure as he had come to see them, and to have
urged the prince to pursue another and more liberal course.
r^AVho can say whether this is true or not, tor who can knoAV?
the secrets of that dying bed ? _3^

Yet every man can see that the new sovereign acted as if
some such warning had been given. He began his reign with,
acts of mercy! Hundreds of prison doors were ^^ened, thou-
sands ot exiles were released from bonds. An honorable
peace was made with the Western Powers, and the dream of
marching on Stamboul was brushed aside. An empire of
seventy millions was found big enough to hold her own. Al-
exander proyedthat he had none of the Tartar's lust of terri-
tory by giving up part ot iiessarabia for the sake of peace.
~~k5ecured on "his frontiers, Alexander turned his eyes on the
people and tlie provinces committed to his care. Avast ma-
joritytjfilis'^emmTrymen were seris. Not one in ten could
read ; not one in fifty could sign his name. Great numbers
of his people stood aloof from the Official ChurcK The serfs'
"Vere much oppressed by the nobles; tlTe'OTd Believers were
bitterly persecuted by the monks ; yet these two classes were
the bone and sinew of the land. If strength was sought be-

J

356 Feee Eussia.

yond the army and. the official classes, Avhere conld he find it,
save among these serfs in tlie c<:)untry, tliose Old Ik'licvers in
the towns? In no other places. How could such popullF]
Tions, suffering as they were from physical bondage and re-Vi"
ligious hate, be reconciled to the empire, added to the nation- l
[al force? — ^

Studying the men over whom he was called to rule, the
Emperor Avent down among his peoj)le ; living on their river
banks and in their rural communes ; passing from the Arctic
to the Caspian Sea, from the Vistula to the Ural mines;
kneeling with them at Solovetsk and Troitsa ; parleying with
them on the roadside and by the inland lake ; observing them
in the forest and in the mine ; until he felt that he had seen
more of the Russian soil, knew more of the Russian people,
than any of the ministers about his court.

In the light of knowledge thus carefully acquired, he opened]
the great question of the serfs; and feeling strong in his
minute acquaintance Avith his country, had the happy courageu ■
to insist on his principle of "liberty with land," against the|
views of his councils and committees in favor of "liberty I
, without land." ^

Before that act was carried out in every part, he began his
great reform in the army. He put down flogging, beating,
and striking in the ranks. He opened schools in the camp,
cleared the avenues of promotion, and raised the soldier's
condition on the moral, not less than on the material side.

The imiversities were then reformed in a pacific sense.
Swords were put down, uniforms laid aside, and corporate
privileges withdrawn. Education was divorced from its con-
nection with the camp. Lay professors occupied the chairs,
and the young men attending lectures stood on the same level
Avith their fellows, subject to the same magistrate, amenable
to the common code. The schools became free, and students
ceased to be feared as " servants of the Tsar."

This change was followed by that immense reform in the
administration of justice which transferred the trial of offend-
ers from the police oftice to the courts of laAV ; replacing an
always ai'bitrary and often corrupted oflScial by an impartial
jury, acting in union with an educated judge.

At the same period he opened those local parliaments, the

Alexander. 357

district assemblies and the provincial assemblies, M'hich are
training men to think and speak, to listen and decide — to be- "
lieve in argument, to respect opposing views, and exercise the
virtues required in public life.

In the wake of these reforms came the still more delicate
question of Church reform; including the relations of the
Black clergy to the White ; of the Orthodox clergy, whether
Black or White, to the Old Believers ; of the Holy Governing
Synod to Dissenters ; as also the influence which the Church
should exercise over secular education, and the supremacy of
the canon law over the civil law.

Each of these great reforms would seem, in a country like
Russia, to require a lifetime ; yet under this daring and be-
neficent ruler they are all proceeding side by side. Opposed
by the three most powerful parties in the empire — the BTn'ck
Clergy^who feel that power is slipping from their hands — the
old military_chiefs, who think their soldiers should be kept
in order by the stick — the thriftless nobles, who prefer Hom-
berg and Paris to a dull life on their estates — the Emperor
not the less keeps steadily working out his ends. What
wonder that he is adored by peasants, burghers, and parish
priests, by all who wish to live in peace, to till their fields, to
mind their shops, and to say their jirayers !

A free Russia is ajoacjfic Russia^ By his genius and his
occupation, a Russian is Ip.ts inflinpd to wnr thnn _pjthpi' a r\
Briton or a Gaul ; and as the right of voting on public ques-
tions comes to be his habit, his voice will be more and more

. . . . A

cast for the policy that gives him peace. In one direction

only he looks with driiad — across that opening of the Eastern
Stepj^e through which he has seen so many hordes of his
enemies swarm into his towns and fields. Through tliat
opening he has pushed — is now pushing — and will push his
way, until Khiva and Bokhara fall into his power, as Tash-
kend and KIoEan have fallen into his power.

Why should we En^ijh regret his march, repine at his
success ? Is he not fighting, for all the Avorld, a battle of law,
of order, and of civihzation ? Would not Russia at Bokhara
mean the English at Bokhara also? Would not roads be '
made, and stations built, and passes guarded through the
stej)pe for traders and travellers of every race? Could any

^

358 Free Eussia.

otlier people undertake this task? Why then should we cry-
down the JMoscovite ? Even in our selfish interests, it would
be well for us to have a civilized neighbor on our frontier
rather than a savage tribe; a neighbor bound by law and
courtesy, instead of a savage khan who murders our envoy
and rejects our trade !

Russia requires a hundred years of peace; but she will notf
find that peace until she has closed the passage of her East- ,
ern Steppe by planting the banner of St. George on the Tower '^
, jof Timour Beg. ^

t" Meantime, the reforming Emperor holds his course — a lonelyS^.
man, much crossed by care, much tried by family afilictions, L^
much enduring in his public life. -A

One dark December day, near dusk, two Englishmen hail a
boat on the Neva brink, and push out rapidly through the
bars of ice towards that grim fortress of St. Peter and St.
Paul, in which lie buried under marble slab and golden cross
the emperors and empresses (with one exception) since the
reign of Peter the Great. As they are pushing onward, they
observe the watermen droj:* their oars and doff their caps ;
and looking round, they see the imj^erial barge, ^^ropelled by
twenty rowers, athwart their stern. The Emperor sits in that
barge alone ; an ofiicer is standing by his side, and the helms-
man directs the rowers how to pull. Saluting as he glides
past their boat, the Emperor jumps to land, and muffling his
loose gray cloak about his neck, steps hastily along the planks
and up the roadway leading to the church. No one goes
with him. The six or eight idlers whom he meets on the
road just touch their hats, and stand aside to let him pass.
Trying the front door of that sombre church, he finds it
locked ; and striding off quickly to a second door, he sees a
man in plain clothes, and beckons to him. The door is quick-
ly opened, and the lord of seventy millions walks into the
church that is to be his final home. The English visitors are
near. " Wait for an instant," says the man in plain clothes ;
" the Emperor is within ;" but adds, " you can step into the
porch ; his majesty will not keep you long." The porch is
parted from the church by glass doors only, and the English
visitors look down XTjDon the scene within. Long aisles and
columns stretch and rise before them. Flags and trophies,

Alexander. 859

Avon in a hundred battles, fought against the Swede and
Frank, the Perse and Turk, adorn the walls, and here and
there a silver lamp burns fitfully in front of a pictured saint.
Between the columns stand, in white sepulchral rows, the im-
perial tombs — a weird and ghastly vista, gleaming in that red
and sombre light.

Alone, his cap drawn tightly on his brow, and mufiled in
his loose gray coat, the Emperor passes from slab to slab ;
now pausing for an instant, as if conning an inscription on
the stone, now crossing the nave absorbed and bent; here
hidden for a moment in the gloom, there moving furtively
along the aisle. The dead are all around him — Peter, Catha-
rine, Paul — fierce warriors, tender women, innocent babes,
and overhead the dust and glory of a hundred wars. What
brings him hither in this wintry dusk? The weight of life?
The love of death ? He stops, unbonnets, kneels — at the foot
of his mother's tomb ! Once more he pauses, kneels — kneels
a long time, as it m prayer ; then, rising, kisses the golden
cross. That slab is the tomb of his eldest son !

A moment later he is gone.

THE END.

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